


Tėvelis

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, And The World Was Wide Enough, Attention Kink, BDSM, Bathing/Washing, Begging, Biting, Bloodplay, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Cock & Ball Torture, Daddy Kink, Dark Will, Desperation Play, Dirty Talk, Dom Hannibal, Dry Orgasm, Dubious Consent, Explicit Consent, Face Slapping, Feeding, Foreskin Play, Gags, Gratuitous Hamilton References, Hand Jobs, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal is Hannibal, He's Doing Just Fine Thank You, Humiliation, JustFuckMeUp, Language Kink, M/M, Manipulation, Marking, Memory Palace, Mind Games, Multiple Orgasms, Murder Husbands, Murder Kink, Nipple Play, No Safeword, Overstimulation, Past Rape/Non-con, Pervertibles, Possessive Hannibal, Possessive Will, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Praise Kink, Relationship Negotiation, Rimming, Sadism, Service Kink, Spanking, Sub Will, Sugar Daddy Hannibal, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Under-negotiated Kink, Vulnerable Hannibal, Watersports, Whipping, Will Graham Doesn't Need Help, Will Loves Hannibal, ball busting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:59:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7098148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chad Eastwick knows without a doubt that he won’t be getting out of this alive, that these are his last moments. All of the gears have turned and locked into place. There are exactly three Hannibals of which he is aware: one bills itself as America’s hometown, one marched war elephants over the Alps, and the other is sitting in front of him and will probably be eating his liver tomorrow morning. It really is a pity, because he’s going to miss seeing <i>Hamilton</i> in July.</p><p>There’s the whole not being dead bit, too, of course, but that seems insignificant in the face of waking up to tonight’s performance of <i>Murderpiece Theatre.</i></p><p>***</p><p>Will needs the assistance of a highly-perceptive third party to win an unusual game of kink-naming. Hannibal waits patiently, hoping and longing for Will to learn a single word. Chad just wants to stay off the menu and out of earshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that there are extra tags/warnings at the end of each chapter. They have not been included in the main fic tags because they are either (a) things that do not happen between Hannibal and Will, (b) mentioned in passing/singular occurrences, or (c) superfluous warnings that are likely unnecessary, but that I want to point out for safety's sake. I have PTSD; I know too well what it's like to be triggered. The only feelings I want you to have while reading are of the kinky Fannibal variety. <3
> 
> Innumerable thanks to my betas, [betts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts/works) (who introduced me to daddy kink and therefore ruined me) and [Llewcie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie/works) (who I may have brought into the fold, as well). Thanks, too, to [Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/) for holding the [#JustFuckMeUp](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/tagged/JustFuckMeUp) event, which spurred me into writing over nine thousand words of kink and discovery.
> 
> Please do not repost/copy/duplicate this work to other sites. That's called theft.

This is the weirdest goddamn abduction.

Not that Chad’s ever been abducted before, but he’s fairly sure that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Sure, he’s duct-taped to a chair in his own basement. There’s so much plastic sheeting on the floor that he’s certain he won’t be getting out of this intact, which really is a pity, because he’s going to miss seeing  _ Hamilton _ in July.

There’s the whole not being dead bit, too, of course, but that seems insignificant in the face of waking up to tonight’s performance of  _ Murderpiece Theatre _ .

“I wish you’d mentioned that you weren’t a true exhibitionist before I bothered with this guy,” the man with the curly brown hair says to his companion. “I’m honestly scraping the bottom of the barrel here.”

“I enjoyed being seen by you,” he replies, “because you understood. You saw my art for what it was. But being watched?”

“Yeah, I know. Like I said, reaching. Maybe death itself?”

His silver-haired cohort says nothing, not out loud, at least. Even in the relative gloom of the basement, illuminated by one sole, bare, horribly cliche light bulb dangling precariously over head, the man’s red eyes speak volumes. He’s challenging or perhaps judging his...friend?

Chad takes a quick glance at each man’s left hand, sees the gold glinting from their ring fingers. Husbands then, which makes this a domestic dispute. One written by Stephen King, no doubt.

The man on the left seems sort of...twitchy, Chad decides, surrounded with an aura of nervous, chaotic energy, like a snake waiting to strike. He’s wearing a soft grey turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a worn pair of jeans. His hair falls in dark curls around his face, which is covered in several days’ worth of stubble, save for one long white scar where the hair refuses to grow. The light reflects off of something metallic on the other side of the room, makes him look like he has a halo, adds a cherubic innocence to the angles of his face and the blue of his eyes.

His husband, on the other hand, is dressed impeccably in what appears to be a cream-colored single breasted suit with a kelly green windowpane check, accentuated by an ostentatious yellow paisley tie and matching pocket handkerchief. He’s also wrapped in plastic, a second suit . Both hang slightly off his frame, which strikes Chad as strange given the care in his appearance. His hair is perfect, pulled back into a neat bun, not messy like Mr. Twitch’s. Whereas his husband looks like a man gone mad and ready to kill, Mr. Stoic seems ready for a high society derby soiree.

Chad changes his mind. This murder was definitely composed by Neil Gaiman. Maybe a collaboration with Truman Capote via Ouija board, because the whole situation screams cold blood.

“I thought maybe you got a hard-on from it is all,” Mr. Twitch says tiredly, gesturing at Chad with his bowie knife.

“No, you didn’t,” says Mr. Stoic with disdain and a touch of disappointment.

“No,” sighs Mr. Twitch. “I knew better, from crime scenes and conversations both. Just…” He waves his knife slightly from side to side. “Stumped.”

Mr. Stoic’s nostrils flare, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it of a movement. “I experience an entirely different form of physical arousal from death,” he says, “as you should well know by now.” Mr. Stoic allows a hint of human emotion to break his composure before adding, “I do enjoy seeing you debauched and dripping in blood, however. ”

Mr. Twitch glares. “Mine or someone else’s?”

His smile widens into a charming, menacing, bemused monstrosity. “There’s much to be gained from both options.”

“Of course there is.”

“This can hardly be a surprise to you, Will,” says Mr. Stoic, as though wanting to see one’s partner drenched in blood were normal. Although, Chad supposes, remembering his predicament, it might be for these two. “And you cannot deny the obscene beauty of life running through your fingers. The intimacy of the kill.”

Mr. Twitch--no, Will closes his eyes and visibly shudders before taking a steadying breath. “Look, I’m not denying that we both have a visceral reaction to...viscera. I just assumed that your pretentious ass might get off to offing. Like an...an animalistic kind of eroticism, that sort of thing.”

“I cannot deny that watching you in the act is intensely erotic, or at least has been the few precious times I have been witness to your design. But, though the primal adrenaline of the hunt is the same as that of sex, I do not take the same sort of pleasure in it.”

“I  _ get that,” _ Will says. “I’m running out of ideas. This game isn’t fun anymore.”

“Was it supposed to be?”

“Well, yeah, or at least I’d thought it was for you,” says Will. “It’s chess, except anticipating the last of your moves seems to be completely beyond me.”

Mr. Stoic tilts his head and smirks proudly. “You’ve deduced the majority.”

“And you had mine figured out  _ weeks _ ago.”

“To be fair,” concedes Mr. Stoic, looking behind him, searching the room, “you only have the one.”

“Trust me, I know. It’s a curse.” Will disappears into the darkness behind them.

“It’s a gift,” Mr. Stoic insists, and Chad barely catches his pained grimace before it disappears behind the practiced steel of his face. “You are a chameleon of sorts,” he says, switching his weight to his left foot. “Your empathy allows you to find pleasure in what pleases others.”

Will grumbles incoherently, mostly cursing under his breath from what Chad can pick out. He hears the creak of old wood and the scrape of a heavy object across the rough cement floor, then the scratch of ripping plastic as it meets the tarps. “Why didn’t you say your side was bothering you?”

Mr. Stoic winces as he sits down in the oversized wooden desk chair Will has drug over for him. It’s an interesting dichotomy, the elegant man in the crinkling plastic suit settling into the rolling chair with casters, but no wheels. “It seemed unimportant.”

“You are human, you know,” Will says as he fusses over his husband as much as he is able, crouching with intent to check Mr. Stoic’s right side before remembering that he is wrapped up like a shrink wrapped pork loin. Instead, he adds very quietly, “I can’t lose you again.”

“Nor I you, dear Will,” he replies, and Mr. Stoic’s hand is so gentle on the side of Will’s face, cradling it like it was meant to rest in his palm, like there was never any other place it was meant to lie. But it doesn’t strike Chad as a lover’s caress. There’s a strange fondness, a fierce awe in Mr. Stoic’s gaze, as though he were an artist enamored with his own creation. Protective. Paternal.

Chad makes a living off of reading people, and he’s still never felt like more of an intruder than he does now.

Which is somewhat ironic, considering the circumstances.

“Perhaps,” begins Mr. Stoic, giving Will’s face a fond pat before withdrawing his hand, “if you had chosen a lighter mark, you would have no need to fret over an old man.” He leans back in his chair, the groaning of the wood accentuated by the crinkle of the plastic, a smug look on his face and a slight lift to his brow.

Will breathes in sharply as he stands back up, a practiced effort in patience if Chad’s ever seen one. “And perhaps,” Will says, fixing an errant strand of Mr. Stoic’s hair and pointedly avoiding his eyes, “if you would just tell me what you want from me, I wouldn’t have had to select Mr. Eastwick in the first place.”

Ah. Yes. Chad Eastwick, who is here, bound to a chair in some avant garde dinner theater of the absurd. He’d be amused if he weren’t so completely baffled and probably in at least two kinds of shock.

“I imagined there was more to your selection than you were letting on.”

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he snaps. Will had been all tenderness and care, loose-limbed and heavy-gazed with his partner. Now, brought back to the matter at hand, he’s tense, like his muscles are calculating even harder than he is.

“What are his qualifications?”

“He’s a reader,” says Will, and he finally acknowledges Chad’s existence, glancing over at him, rocking back on his heels. “Aren’t you, Chad?”

Chad shrugs as smartly as possible given the circumstances.

“He shares your empathic nature?”

Will smiles suddenly, akin to a Cheshire cat. It’s more unnerving than his companion’s in that it doesn’t seem to fit his face. “Hardly. Chad’s a charlatan. A practiced con man that hides in plain sight.” When Mr. Stoic fails to respond, Will turns at the waist and adds, “Mr. Eastwick bills himself as a psychic. He holds  séances for folks with too much time and money and not nearly enough brain.”

Mr. Stoic looks at Chad for the first time. “How dreadful,” he says flatly.

“He’s a criminal,” Will continues, and it isn’t Cheshire-like, at all, Chad decides, the way he smiles, the way he stalks. No, this is prowling, and there might have been something philosophic about the man once, but now there is only ferality. “A liar,” says Will, pressing the flat side of the tip of his blade under Chad’s chin and forcing their eyes to meet, “but an honest one. Mr. Eastwick reads his marks to their bones and back and tells them everything they want to hear.”

“I must admit to being disappointed, Will. You should hardly need a third party. We are as much one as we are two, yet you insist on missing what’s right in front of your face.”

“I seem to recall that having always been something of a problem for me where you were concerned.”

“As you say.”

“Anyway,” says Will, removing the knife and clapping Chad on the shoulder, “I had hoped to avoid needing his services in that capacity. The intent was to give you a sizeable canvas to work with. It’s been some months since you were able to create prehumously.”

“Such a thoughtful boy,” says Mr. Stoic, and there’s such love and appreciation written on his face that it’s almost enough to quell the rising bile in Chad’s throat.

Will laughs softly. “It’s been lonely, Hannibal, leaving you at home.”

And Chad knows without a doubt that he won’t be getting out of this alive now, that these are his last moments. All of the gears have turned and locked into place. There are exactly three Hannibals of which he is aware: one bills itself as America’s hometown, one marched war elephants over the Alps, and the other is sitting in front of him and will probably be eating his liver tomorrow morning.

“Unfortunately,” Will continues, “I’m going to have to ask you to wait upstairs while I question our host.”

Hannibal doesn’t pout, but comes as reasonably close to it as Chad would expect. “I thought you desired my company.”

“I  _ do _ ,” he insists, and then more quietly, “God, but I do.”

“Then why--”

“Because you’ve tired yourself out enough already and I’d rather not mop you both up off the floor.”

Hannibal squints. “There will be no need for mopping. The plastic will catch it.”

“Will you go wait in the study, or do I have to carry you?” Will turns fully around, Chad supposes to assess any reaction. “That doesn’t do anything for you either, does it?”

“I believe you already crossed manhandling off of the list.”

“Worth a shot. Again.”

“I may…” He averts his gaze, and Chad is struck by how a merciless serial killer can suddenly look so vulnerable. Hannibal clears his throat. “I may, however, require your assistance up the stairs.”

And Chad couldn’t miss Will’s swallow even if he wasn’t looking. The air stinks of guilt and self-loathing, fills his nostrils and snakes into his lungs. Will’s remorse is palpable, and Chad hates it more than the killer must hate himself.

Will is at Hannibal’s side quickly, leaning down for Hannibal to wind an arm around his neck. He slides his arm beneath Hannibal’s, helps him out of the chair in the most dignified way possible, though Will does momentarily lose his grip, his hand slipping on the plastic suit.

“I don’t know why you insisted on wearing this damn thing.”

“Because you packed it,” says Hannibal. He lets Will settle his arm around him, moves his hand to card through Will’s hair lovingly, as though there isn’t a man bound to a chair getting bored while he awaits his own likely horrible and very certain death.

Chad watches them slowly ascend the stairs, and wonders what sort of hellish guessing game they’re even playing at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -non-consensual bondage/hostage-holding  
> -potentially fatphobic language


	2. Chapter 2

Will wishes his empathy worked the way all of his and Hannibal’s fans on TattleCrime seem to think it does.

It’s almost as bad as the fact that Hannibal eggs them on, drops them little bread crumbs of truth in the forums. Because Hannibal never, ever lies--Will knows that all too well. He hides everything in plain sight, couches his words in such a way that no one else could ever tell when he was spilling his own guts. Or rather, someone else’s.

Hannibal’s become rather taken with the Murder Husbands subforum during his convalescence. Will doesn’t say anything, because the severity of Hannibal’s injuries were, after all, Will’s own damn fault. Pulling them off the cliff exacerbated the gunshot wound, but how else were they to escape when they were on camera and horrifically injured? Better to chance death than capture and separation. The world was likely better off without them in it, anyway.

Though Hannibal’s glee at the popularity of his cannibal pun thread is, perhaps, worse than imprisonment. At least Will wouldn’t have to hear them if he were in solitary.

But that pales in comparison to the wild speculation as to how his empathy manifests itself. Will doesn’t care that there are people who spend their time writing about the two of them running around on ridiculous murder sprees, though he will admit to harboring some mild worry about a few of the authors. What bothers him--the only thing that does, really--is how often he is portrayed as having something akin to mystical superpowers. Which he doesn’t. Not really.

He certainly can’t read anyone’s mind. All he can do is walk back through clues, place himself in a scene. It’s more akin to an actor falling into a character than the psychic hotline as far as Will’s concerned. But he’d posted as much on the forum--Hannibal called what Will wrote a “meta”, though he’d meant “m-ate-a” and Will had briefly entertained dashing his brains out on the end table--and not a single poster had agreed with his assessment of himself.

Will remains as out of control of his own life and the telling of it as ever. Perhaps more so now than before.

Even worse, some of the stories Hannibal’s read on the forum--

“You vain bastard,” Will had said, “of course you’re reading fiction about us being on the run while we are _actually on the run._ ”

“I’ll leave the best ones tabbed open for you,” Hannibal had smugly replied.

“I won’t read them.”

“I think you will.”

\--(which Will absolutely has not read because, as he told his students, skimming doesn’t count, it _doesn’t_ ) make it sound as though all the two of them accomplish while recovering from their swan dive into the Atlantic are killing people, amassing a small collection of dogs, and having abundant, copious, unrealistic amounts of sex. It’s so much more interesting than what’s actually happened in the days since the Dragon. So far, Will’s been the one doing the killing, and only when necessary, there isn’t a single damn dog to his name, and as far as sex…

Will sighs to himself as he walks back down the stairs. Games within games within games, and one Mr. Chad Eastwick has found himself unfortunately in the middle of.

It hadn’t been difficult to apprehend him here in his new home, a robin’s egg blue rowhouse in west Philadelphia. Honestly, the crime of enabling gentrification is enough for Will to be comfortable killing him; it’s worse than Eastwick’s outright white-collar theft according to Will’s own personal ethics. Gaining original entry had been too simple, Hannibal posing as an interior designer, distracting Eastwick while Will cased the house in secret.

Will’s been back a few times since, mostly to check Mr. Eastwick’s schedule and make friends with his dog, and elderly Pomeranian with a tendency to bark at a blade of grass in the wind. But they’re well acquainted now, he and Inheritance. She knows he’ll bring bits of bacon for her, and rub her belly for a good hour.

Inheritance hadn’t made a peep when Hannibal came up from behind and strangled the breath out of her master. Her master, who sits in his plush white bathrobe, bare legs fastened securely to a navy chair with gray tape, arms bound behind him likewise, the lower half of his face covered with the same.

Mr. Eastwick’s a sizeable man, neat, decently attractive. His eyes are a piercing green and track Will’s progress down the decrepit stairs and over to stand in front of him. Will is impressed at how unafraid he seems, as if he never expected for his life to end well in the first place.

He cocks his head to one side, assessing, before prying a corner of the tape loose on Chad’s face and unceremoniously ripping it off.

“Can this wait until July?” he asks, face scrunching and unscrunching, red and irritated.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ll even eat well,” Chad continues. “I’ll make sure I taste better. I know what you two are, and it’s fine, if a little unsettling. But killing a man before he’s seen _Hamilton_ is grievous.”

Will honestly has no idea how to feel about that. He’s sure Hannibal would be inclined to agree. (And hadn’t _that_ been a shock, coming home to Hannibal propped up in bed as “Dear Theodosia” trickled through the speakers on his tablet and tears trickled equally down his face.)

“I try not to judge people too harshly,” explains Chad. “You know. What with my line of work. I’m in no position to shame another criminal, no matter how I feel about their activity.”

Will keeps staring.

Chad shrugs as best he can. “Man’s gotta eat.”

“I think you might actually be more insane than I am.”

“The thought has crossed my mind several times over the past half an hour.”

Will squats down in front of him, arms resting on his knees, knife resheathed in its holster. “I actually don’t intend to kill you now--”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“--provided, that is, you can be of help.”

Chad licks his dry lips. “How can I be of assistance, Mr. Graham?”

“Lecter-Graham,” Will corrects.

“Officially?”

He narrows his eyes. “As far as you’re concerned, yes.”

“Fair enough.”

Will grimaces as he rises--his knees aren’t what they used to be, not after his legs took the brunt of his and Hannibal’s weight as they crashed into the sea. He pulls over the same chair he had eased Hannibal into and now does the same for himself.

“I kept meaning to fix that.”

“Are you seriously apologizing for a broken chair to the man who’s holding you hostage?”

“If I’m rude,” says Chad, “your husband might choose to eat me after all.”

Will laughs, once, pulling the still-tender scar across his cheek. “I commend your ability to keep a sense of humor.”

“It’s saved my skin more than once.” Chad tries to sit up and adjust his position and only manages to strain against the tape. He sighs in resignation. “So is this about whatever little game you’re playing?”

“Mmm. Yes.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Kinks,” says Will bluntly. He grins again as he settles back in the wooden desk chair, relaxing and letting his legs fall open to the side. Chad’s look of discomfited confusion is gratifying. Will basks in the awkward silence, his eyes trained on Chad’s face and the flux of emotion playing across his features, tonguing the inside of his cheek to relish in the sting.

“Kinks,” Chad repeats dully at last.

Will smirks. “You see,” he says, “Hannibal and I have been holed up in a tiny one-bedroom hovel in the middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin for almost a year now. Since you know who we are, I assume you keep up with the papers.”

“My niece is something of a horror fan,” says Chad. “You two are all Elaine talks about. Spends all her time writing stories about you on--”

“TattleCrime, yes, I know,” Will sighs. “So you know the details of our injuries before we...jumped. As you can imagine, the fall didn’t precisely help, and Hannibal was in poor health from his incarceration. He’s still recovering, though he’s much better than he was.”

“I heard what you said,” Chad interjects softly, “about almost losing him. I lost my Daphne almost a decade ago.”

Will swallows. “It was touch and go for a little while.”

“But what does that have to do with your kinky little game?”

“Do you know how intensely boring it is, being in hiding?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

Will leans forward, hands clasped in front of him. “It’s terrible. Thank God we have the internet for Hannibal’s twisted curiosity, but do you know how many flies I’ve tied since I had the energy to do so? He’s taken to ordering broken boat motors off of eBay for me to fiddle with. I have a cupboard full of romance novels--”

“Full of what now?”

“We all have vices, Chad. It’s Hannibal’s fault, anyway,” Will says, irritated, “much like everything else.”

“So you’re bored,” says Chad.

“Intensely. I’ve taken to...practicing my newfound art.”

“You’re murdering out of boredom?”

“There’s nothing else to do when Hannibal’s napping.”

Chad chuckles cautiously. “You know, Elaine would be very disappointed to hear that you aren’t fucking like bunnies on every surface, making up for lost time.”

“There’s a reason I’ve taken to reading trashy romance, Chad.” Will rubs a hand down his face. “He won’t touch me.”

“What?”

“Hannibal,” Will says, like it needs to be explained, because it certainly doesn’t make sense to him. “He spent all that time locked--” And it hurts, even now, even more than the smile carved in his stomach did, more than watching Abigail’s life flow out like the tide, more than the tide itself. It’s Will’s fault, all of it, the indignity Hannibal suffered under Alana’s “care”, the injury, the death. He ignores the sharp prick of tears in his eyes. “--locked up,” he continues, “wanting me still, wanting me for years. But we haven’t so much as kissed, not more than is...” Will sighs and finishes with the only word that seems accurate. “Proper.”

Chad looks incredulous, and Will can’t blame him.

“He wants me to know him before knowing him.”

“Can’t you just...read his mind or whatever?”

Will grits his teeth. “My empathy disorder. Doesn’t. Work. That way.”

“Oh.”

“Now that he’s feeling more like his old self, he introduced this game. We guess what the other likes.”

“Which is unfair because you have the potential to like everything?”

“Chad,” says Will, “first, yes, but second, I can’t deal with the frustration anymore. It’s too much. And I can’t figure out what he’s wanting me to see. I mean, it’s obvious he’s a sadist, and that he likes to deny, at least when it comes to sexual activity.” He props his arms on his knees and his forehead in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you.”

“It seems more fit for a therapist, honestly.”

Will glances up at Chad and says, “We’re planning on paying a visit to a psychiatrist soon.”

“I really doubt that’s going to be therapeutic.”

“You’d be surprised,” Will says, smiling. “But I’d very much like to have solved this other problem before then. So I need your help. You’ve seen how Hannibal and I interact. I need to know what a third party sees in his behavior toward me that I haven’t.”

He watches Chad mull it over, taking the opportunity to relax back into the chair once more. It’s a long shot, Will knows, and an enormous risk, involving someone like this. But if he spends one more minute suffering under Hannibal’s gaze full of adoration and hungry, restrained desire, he’s going to lose his mind.

“So sadism,” Chad begins. “Denial. Dominance?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Not bondage, he’s too much of a control freak to let something as mundane as restraints get in the way.” Chad bites his lip, eyes darting back and forth as he thinks. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that he has a thing for language, maybe voices.”

Will snickers. “If he’s hasn’t popped wood at an opera, I’d be enormously surprised. And he does seem to enjoy me reading to him, though I have no idea what I’m saying half the time.”

“There’s the daddy kink,” Chad tosses out, “but that’s obvious enough.”

Will blinks. His mouth opens, and he can’t close it. He can close his eyes, though, and does before asking, “Daddy kink?”

“You mean...you hadn’t noticed?”

Will opens his eyes again. There’s an uneasy, hot feeling in his stomach. He can’t breathe right--there’s not enough air in the room, or in Philadelphia, or the world, really.

“Enlighten me,” he says instead.

“Wow,” says Chad, “where do I start? Does he call you ‘boy’ fairly often?”

“Well...yes. Now at least. Not too much before.”

“He guided you to your current--” Chad clears his throat. “--profession. Raised you, in a way.”

Will’s unsettlement grows, but there’s an equal kind of arousal, a piece of himself he’s never cared to examine slowly rising to the surface. “Yes.”

“He accentuates your slight age difference,” he continues. “Called himself an ‘old man’. Then the way he touches you, it’s not like a lover does, is it?”

“It’s not?”

“Not quite. I mean,” Chad amends, “it _is,_ but it isn’t.”

“Well, isn’t that remarkably helpful.”

“He praises you. Constantly. He groomed you--”

Will grimaces. “I don’t like the implication of that. He led, I followed, in one way or another.”

“Have it your way,” says Chad. “The fact remains that he singled you out, paid you special attention, cooked for you, cared for you, made allowances for actions he would refuse to abide in others.”

“How do you know that?”

“My niece has every statement either of you have ever given practically memorized.”

“That still doesn’t explain--”

Chad smiles. “I’m a very good uncle.”

“Ah.”

“You said he buys you things?”

“He’s the one with the accounts,” Will explains, getting up to pace. This is ridiculous. Hannibal doesn’t have a daddy kink. That’s something you only read about in trashy smut. Which Hannibal had apparently read since Alana introduced them during his mentorship and had then introduced Will to and--

Oh god. It’s been in front of his nose the whole time. Hannibal might as well have been blasting Lana Del Rey. He could’ve been having kinky sex _months_ ago.

“I can’t exactly go out and get a job,” he says feebly, trying to deny it more to Chad than to himself at this point. “We even have the groceries delivered.”

“Will,” says Chad flatly, “he buys you books. Fly-tying equipment and supplies.”

“I’m terrible company when idle,” which is the truth, but feels like a lie right now.

“Your extremely-sharp, likely high-quality knife holstered on your calf.”

He’d be sweating if not for the cool subterranean air. “It’s full tang. Carbon stainless steel. But--”

“ _Boat motors._ ”

“Well--”

“Did you even have to ask him for anything?”

Will hesitates, and then, “I told him the musty clothes he’d had left for us years ago in the safehouse were fine. He insisted otherwise.”

“And how much did your obviously expensive shirt cost?”

“I don’t know,” Will almost whispers, nervous to admit it all out loud. The daddy kink is hard enough to accept, but what Chad’s suggesting…

“So you have someone who’s been treating you to the best for years, who’s catered to your whims--”

That’s a step too far. Will turns on Chad suddenly, a hand twisted in his hair, yanking his head up to meet him eye to eye. “Hannibal gaslit me. Abused me. Framed me for murder.”

“And look around, look around,” says Chad, still cool in the face of deadly circumstances. “You’re still here. Don’t pretend you aren’t both extremely fucked-up individuals. You’re both monsters. It’s just that you were still hiding in the dark beneath the bed when he found you.”

Will weighs this. Not that he really has to--he knows the truth of it, as much as he hates it. He releases his hold on Chad and steps back, though he would prefer not to.

 _I brace my foot on the chair and push it over. He tips to the ground, his head thudding once, twice. A dull, hollow echo from the concrete below. A thin line of blood slithering away, following the wrinkles in the plastic. He looks up, dazed, sees me hovering above him. I smile at him in pity as I kneel beside him, carefully avoiding the blood, watching it slip along the new paths I’ve made for it. And then I ignore the tape but divorce him from the chair all the same, one limb at a time, listening to him scream and pant as he’s reduced to nothing but a head and torso. He gets quieter with every crunch of my blade through bone, every slippery squelch through fat and tissue, the agonized resistance of protesting muscle. His eyes stop blinking, fixed on my form as I open him up like a_ _matryoshka doll, one layer at a time, flaying him like he has flayed me._

_This is beautiful._

“So, what?” Will asks needlessly. “You’re saying Hannibal’s my sugar daddy?”

Chad eyes him fearfully, as if he’d read the design in Will’s mind as clearly as if it were written on his face. “If the shoe fits…”

They stare each other down for a bit, Chad scared to breathe and Will remembering that he can. Eventually, Will breaks eye contact (or rather, brow contact--he still prefers not to let others see into his soul like that) and crosses to the back wall as he says, “I don’t suppose you want to be awake for this.”

“But you said you weren’t going to--”

“And I won’t.” Will opens the nondescript medical travel kit, selecting and preparing a syringe.

“Then what…” It dawns on Chad slowly. “Not in my grandmother’s chair.”

Will grins. “If it’s the antique pinstriped bergère,” he says, “Hannibal insisted on sitting in it.”

“I hate you.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Will tells him, rounding behind him, kneeling down, and finding the vein Hannibal had marked previously on the inside of Chad’s wrist. “You’ll wake up safe and snug and probably in bed in about twelve hours.”

Will gives Chad one last amused smile, turns off the light overhead, and pushes him completely from his mind. He has a role to throw himself into, and at least one pronunciation to locate and learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -non-consensual bondage/hostage-holding  
> -non-consensual drug use
> 
> Credit where credit is due:  
> -I absolutely adopted [abrae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/abrae/pseuds/abrae/works)'s "[Hannibal is obsessed with romance novels](https://tea-and-liminality.tumblr.com/post/134898353690/learnfromthewintertrees-answered-okay-ill-take)" headcanon. She posited that it was a new development since his discovery of feelings for Will; I decided Our Punny Valentine has been hooked on the genre far longer.  
> -If you haven't yet, you should listen to [the original cast recording](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUSRfoOcUe4avCXPg6tPgdZzu--hBXUYx) for _Hamilton_. It will make Hannibal tearing up at "[Dear Theodosia](http://genius.com/Lin-manuel-miranda-dear-theodosia-lyrics)" make considerably more sense. Chad also directly quotes a lyric from "[That Would Be Enough](http://genius.com/Lin-manuel-miranda-that-would-be-enough-lyrics)". I might be a smidge obsessed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for Lithuanian words are located in the end notes. I spent something like two hours looking up words and basic grammar rules, so hopefully I didn't muck anything up. (Google translate is incorrect approximately 85% of the time and I refused to rely on it because I'm a stubborn perfectionist to a fault.)

Hannibal has been waiting for Will to come into the room for a good thirty minutes. He heard him return from the basement, but he’s remained in the laundry room. Will’s running the washing machine, so Hannibal knows he’s busy and, whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t want Hannibal listening in.

No matter. Hannibal has his book to keep him company, a taut romantic thriller called _Reaper_ that, so far, is very aesthetically pleasing. Will had stripped him of the murder suit, his jacket, and his tie, insisting on his comfort. The pain pills that had practically been forced on him (how could he possibly say no, tell Will that the ache in his side does not bother him as much as the ache in his chest?) have kicked in. It’s strange, how easy it’s become to be vulnerable around Will, how pleasant it is to be doted on, how gratifying to let down his guard and open up the entirety of his being.

All except this. This secret longing is his alone until Will should find it. There is only one word he would burn the world to hear from his lips, but he would only hear it unbidden.

His romantic nature will eventually be the death of him, Hannibal imagines.

He had wanted to lavish Will with affection for so many years, ever since the realization of his terrible mistake in securing Will’s incarceration. He had shed real and countless tears with Bedelia, no matter what she may have believed at the time. Having facilitated his release from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Hannibal nudged Will down the path toward his remaking. And thus had begun his strange obsession.

Hannibal fell in love with the empty chair across from him in his office; his desperate need to father a wayward, irascible boy of a man began in his kitchen with a gun held steady in his face.

He’s never felt this way before, neither the love nor the improper desires. Hannibal doesn’t understand why he has such an intense need to hear Will whine the word “daddy” as he lies sprawled beneath him. Psychological self-analysis has always come easily to him, but not nearly as easily as the bone-melting orgasm at the thought of Will accepting this new facet of his strange nature. It had barely taken four strokes before Hannibal was sighing out his release, spilling hot and thick over his fist.

But he refuses to bring it up. There’s too much forcefulness that’s passed between them. Hannibal wants Will to come to him of his own accord, his own volition. He will not exploit Will any longer--not in any regard that truly matters, at least--and won’t twist his empathy against him for the sake of his own carnality. And if Hannibal is driving them both a bit mad by refusing to bed him until Will’s come to his own conclusions, well, they were both a bit mad to begin with.

Besides, after Alana and his stay in the BSHCI, Hannibal’s come to understand the importance of consent.

The washing machine whirs to a stop, and Hannibal tries to maintain composure, as well as his place on the page. He hopes Will’s scheme has worked, that he’s discovered at last what Hannibal wants from him. It’s hard not to wonder if he will have come to the erroneous conclusion that this is something solely for the privacy of their bedroom; no, Hannibal wants far more than that. He needs the permission to lead his boy in every manner, to usher him into a life he’s yearned for, first subconsciously, now awake. Hannibal yearns to bestow him with every affection, every whim long denied, every gift within his means of giving.

The book in his hands trembles along with his fingers as he looks up and watches Will walk down the hall.

Will stops in the doorway, leaning his back against the hand-carved moulding. His arms come up to cross over his chest in feigned nonchalance--Hannibal knows Will is nervous simply from the slight downward tilt of his head, a tell he can’t shake.

“Hannibal,” he says, steadily, quietly.

Hannibal closes his book and sets it on the small side table. “How is our host?”

“Remarkably calm and cooperative, and now resting uncomfortably.” A sly smile breaks through Will’s nerves. “He’ll be out for a while.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmm.” Will bends his knee and uses his foot to push him off of the moulding. He’s fixing Hannibal with the stare and the slink he reserves for prey, all sinuous, all sin. Will doesn’t stop when he reaches Hannibal’s chair, just grasps the back of the chair and straddles him.

Hannibal’s mouth goes dry. “What are you doing, Will?”

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Will says instead of answering, and Hannibal isn’t sure if he means for delaying in the laundry room or for the months of this little game they’ve been playing. “I was just learning a few things.”

“And what have you learned?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Will pulls back to the length his arms will extend, grip still firm on the chair back. Hannibal’s never seen this look on his face, this cherubic, innocent mask broken only by the coy flutter of his eyelashes. “A new word or two.”

Hannibal doesn’t know what to think. He can’t imagine what words would need to be studied if Will has truly come up from the basement with an understanding of (and perhaps, appreciation for) his proclivities. “Did you now?”

Will closes his eyes and leans in, lips barely brushing Hannibal’s ear. “Tėvelis,” he whispers.

The noise that escapes Hannibal isn’t close to human, a breathy wail that curls out of his heart and filters through his lungs still dirty. His eyes roll up into his head and he clutches Will to him, one hand buried in his dark curls, the other wrapped around his back and, oh, _oh,_ they’ve been here before, on the brink of beauty, just like this, but nothing like this at all.

“Say it again, Will,” and he’s graced with teeth teasing at his lobe.

“Tėvelis.”

“Again.”

Will chuckles and says, drawing out every letter, voice pitched slightly higher, _“Daddy.”_

Hannibal’s mouth is on Will’s lightning quick, nothing like the chaste-but-loving, polite kisses they’ve exchanged previously. This is needy and wanton plunder, Hannibal’s tongue not so much licking into Will’s mouth as much as taking purchase of it, stealing Will’s breath as his own, breaking contact only to bite at and suck on his lips. Will is all content sighs and rolling hips, and Hannibal holds him as tight and still as he dares, as if the moth will feel captured and find another light to flit to. Like he’ll change his mind and fly off into the night.

Will breaks for air first, head tipped back into Hannibal’s hand, the long column of his throat exposed. Hannibal’s mouth is on it instantly, like a magnet, latching on to mark and claim as Will shakes with barely-suppressed laughter.

“I can’t believe that’s all it took.”

“I wanted you to come to me willingly,” Hannibal murmurs into the nape of his neck. “I wanted you to be hungry like I was.”

Will squirms in his lap as Hannibal trails the tip of his tongue slowly back up his throat. “This is such a little thing. All you had to do was ask.”

Hannibal stops short of kissing behind Will’s ear, pulls back to look at him. There’s an easy smile on his face, but Will’s eyes have a sort of questioning wonder, one Hannibal’s seen before and couldn’t possibly forget.

“I could never entirely predict you, mano berniukas.” He tucks one of Will’s stray curls behind his ear before leaning in to kiss him again. It’s soft and slow, a gesture of reassurance, of invitation.

Will shivers as it ends. “Daddy, please,” he begs against his mouth.

“What do you want of me, darling boy?” and Hannibal memorizes the broken moan, the way Will’s head lolls slightly to the side, how his chest rises and falls with quickened breath.

“I want to taste you,” he says, and grinds down into Hannibal’s lap. They’re both rock hard; it’s the hardest Hannibal can ever recall being, even as a teenager, but that’s part of the wonder of this, after all. The illusion of gained and revisited youth, and Will rarely looks his age.

Hannibal’s impressed that he manages enough self control for, “Ask Daddy nicely.”

“Fuck,” Will groans. “Oh shit, please, Daddy. I need you, fuck but I _need you.”_

And it doesn’t matter how weighty the evidence of Will’s desire is, Hannibal wants proof. He wants to see. Immediately. And it doesn’t matter how many times he’s stripped Will before; he wants permission now. “May I undress you?”

“Yeah,” says Will, “yeah.”

Hannibal slides his hands under Will’s cashmere shirt, just enough to let him dip inside the waistband of his holely, distressed jeans to rub at his hipbones. He’s seen Will nude before, manipulated his body more than once; his form will be no great revelation to him. But he’s never touched and taken like _this_ : unclinically, aroused, permitted.

His fingers duck beneath the tail of Will’s undershirt, and Hannibal makes the slow, smooth journey up his sides, over his ribs. Hannibal’s thumbs move inward across his torso, fingertips moving out from Will’s spine to rest just barely curled around him. He lightly brushes over Will’s nipples with the pads of his thumbs, catching eye contact with Will as he does.

Will sucks in a breath through his teeth and leans in toward Hannibal ever so slightly in an attempt to put greater pressure on his nipples.

“Ah ah,” Hannibal says, smiling, running his hands back down Will’s body to rest on his waist again. “You must ask for the things you want.”

“Funny,” Will replies, licking his lips. “Recently you’ve taken to just guessing and buying it for me.”

“Tread carefully, Will. Talking back to your elders is frowned upon.”

“What,” asks Will saucily, lacing his fingers together behind Hannibal’s neck, “you gonna spank me if I misbehave?”

“Should it be necessary, yes.” Hannibal is gratified by the slight flush that brings to Will’s cheeks. “Don’t you think you should try to be good instead? Or do you crave a strong hand?”

When Will doesn’t reply, Hannibal slaps him once, hard, on the right cheek of his ass. It doesn’t prompt Will to do more than gasp and lean in to ravage Hannibal’s mouth again.

Their tongues tangle as Hannibal maneuvers Will as he pleases, taking first one arm out of a sleeve, then the other. He pulls back and snaps at Will’s mouth to make him do the same, taking the opportunity to pull the turtleneck and tee over his head. Any other time, Hannibal would fold them and set them aside, but right now he doesn’t care. Let the dog find them if it will; he’ll just purchase another.

He lets Will claim his mouth, but the kiss ends abruptly when Hannibal finds Will’s nipples again, teasing, rubbing, twisting, tuning him like he would any fine instrument. Will bucks once, but stills himself, barely breathing, letting Hannibal do as he wishes.

“See?” says Hannibal, pulling Will’s chest toward him with a firm grasp, making Will groan encouragingly. “I knew you could be a good boy if you tried.”

“Your mouth,” Will manages, “please, Daddy, your mouth.”

“Where, baby boy? Where does it hurt?”

Will moans, a sound half of pleasure, half of disbelief. “My chest, my nipples, suck them, Daddy.” He inhales and exhales loudly, rising slightly on Hannibal’s lap, making Hannibal pinch harder to try and keep him in place. “Prašau,” he adds breathlessly.

And Hannibal does, moves his hands to grasp Will’s ass, leans in to take a reddened bud into his mouth. The thought of biting down and claiming Will’s flesh forever skitters across his mind, but he pushes it away. He no longer desires to consume Will. Not like that, at least. So he circles his tongue around it instead, tugs at it with his teeth, catalogues every tortured, delighted sound and curse that he pulls from Will’s throat.

Hannibal feels Will’s fingers in his hair as he undoes his bun. The elastic snaps from his carelessness, and Hannibal bites his chest just above his heart in retaliation, sucking a deep bruise into the skin. Will winds Hannibal’s long hair around his hands and uses it to keep Hannibal’s head in place, encourages him to continue. By the time Hannibal pulls away, Will’s chest is mottled in deep red and purple, slightly bloody, highlighting the marks left behind by Hannibal’s teeth.

He leans in again briefly to run his tongue over the blood to collect it, relishes in the bright coppery taste of it, soothes each bit of broken skin as Will hisses above him. Hannibal kisses his way back up his chest and neck, mouths along his jaw until Will moves his mouth to meet him and licks the taste of his own blood out of Hannibal’s mouth. He moans into the kiss before sucking on Hannibal’s tongue, pulling off with a pop.

Will grins as he pushes himself from Hannibal’s lap and slides down his legs and into the floor to kneel in front of him. He pushes Hannibal’s legs apart and leans in to nuzzle at his groin. Hannibal feels the blood rush straight to his cock, would swear he could hear his heart beating in his ears, getting louder as Will lays kisses over the front of his trousers.

“Please, Daddy,” he asks so sweetly. “Need your cock.”

“Go on, then, lovely thing. Don’t keep Daddy waiting.”

Will unbuttons and unzips his fly hastily, and Hannibal knows there will be pulled stitches to have mended, but can’t bring himself to care. He palms Hannibal’s cock through his boxer briefs; Hannibal closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the chair, sighing his appreciation. Just as Hannibal starts to press up into his hand, Will moves and hooks his fingers under the waistband of his suit pants and underwear.

“Up,” he says, and pulls down Hannibal’s trousers the moment he lifts his hips, exposing his uncut dick to the chilled air of the study. “Oh, Daddy,” continues Will (and back in the recesses of Hannibal’s mind, he wonders what exactly Will looked up when he was in the laundry room, what path his empathy led him down), “Daddy, what do I do with this?” There’s a wicked tilt to the corner of his mouth as he takes one finger and drags it lightly up Hannibal’s cock. When he reaches the foreskin, edge peeking just over the weeping tip, collecting precum, Will strokes it up and down with barely-there brushes. “Is that good?”

It’s exquisite. Hannibal feels undone already, fists clenching and unclenching on the cushion of the chair. He reaches for Will’s unruly mop of hair. “So good,” he answers, “you’re doing so well.” Hannibal finds his hair and pulls gently; there will be time for roughness later. “Use your tongue, boy. Don’t tease Daddy.”

Will takes Hannibal’s cock in a loose grip, and runs his flattened tongue over the tip. He goes on to circle inside the foreskin, slowly, before opening his mouth and using his lips to rub over the ever-tightening skin.

This is all going to be over very quickly at this rate. Hannibal’s barely holding on as it is. Without warning, he pushes into the wet warmth of Will’s mouth and begins to fuck. Will takes it, slackens his jaw and closes his eyes, moans around his mouthful of cock. Hannibal pulls out briefly to roll back the foreskin a little, enough to expose his cockhead, then carefully thrusts back in, angling to run it over the ridges on the roof of Will’s mouth.

He comes embarrassingly fast after that; or rather, he would be embarrassed if Will didn’t seem to enjoy it so thoroughly, didn’t hollow his cheeks and suck and swallow until Hannibal goes soft in his mouth. Hannibal’s chest is as tight with pride as his body is loose from his orgasm. Will finally lets Hannibal’s cock fall from between his lips, leaving a trail of spit glistening down his chin.

“Gražūs,” Hannibal says, awestruck, using his thumb to wipe off the spit as Will sits. He’s breathing softly, looking as relaxed as Hannibal feels even though he can see the outline of his cock pressing against the zipper of his jeans. “Gražūs,” he whispers again, sticking his thumb back into Will’s mouth, pressing down on his tongue, watching his eyes flutter shut again as he allows Hannibal to pull down. Hannibal wraps his fingers beneath his chin and stands up, pulling Will to his feet with his mouth.

“Does it hurt, baby boy?” asks Hannibal as soon as he’s released Will, moving his arms to circle around him as his head crashes into his shoulder. His underwear and pants have fallen down his thighs, and he couldn’t care less, even if the denim of Will’s jeans is rough against his sensitized groin.

“Touch me, Daddy,” he pleads. “Make me come, prašau, I wanna come.”

Hannibal shushes him, ”There, there, Daddy’s got you,” and undoes Will’s button fly blindly with one hand. He pushes under the elastic of his cotton boxers and foregoes his dick completely, teasing his fingers along and beneath his balls, pressing in to stimulate his prostate from the outside. Will groans loudly, collapsing fully into Hannibal’s chest, letting him support his weight.

After several minutes of alternating between rubbing his perineum to moving back to circle his entrance with the barest of touches to pulling down on his balls, rolling them in his fingers, Will is a begging mess. But Hannibal can’t get enough of Will’s babbling in his mother tongue, “tėvelis, prašau, tėvelis, tėvelis!”

“Mano širdis,” Hannibal tells him, “so clever, so bright. My wonderful, wonderful boy.”

“Yours,” Will sobs into his neck, “always yours. Always have been, always will be. Please, Daddy, I can’t take anymore, please!”

Hannibal takes pity on him at last, the scent of Will’s arousal too great to bear, delicious and heady in the air. He wraps his hand around Will’s cock, squeezes once, pulls once in a dry dragging grip, and Will comes with a muffled shout, warm over his fingers. As much as Hannibal longs to taste his spend, he’s more interested now in how long Will can take the torment of oversensitivity, particularly now with the lubrication of his own cum.

He tugs Will’s limp cock, rubs his thumb over the head again and again. Will cries in pain and pleasure, shaking in Hannibal’s arms, mumbling his name in between deep gulps of air.

“Daddy, stop,” he finally says, shifting his hips, trying to get away.

“Not yet, berniukas. A little longer. Your suffering is such music. You trust Daddy, yes? Trust him to make you feel good?”

Will pants and squirms but says, “Yes, Daddy.”

“Relax,” Hannibal tells him. “I’ll train your body, baby boy. Your pleasure is mine, it belongs to Daddy now. Someday I’ll lay you down and play with you like this for hours. You’ll get used to it, to the pain. It will feel good again. But for now you must trust me and let go, just let go, Will. Let go.”

Will groans and grows impossibly limp, boneless, surrenders himself completely. After a few minutes more of listening to his broken whines and slowing breath, Hannibal releases his cock and withdraws his hand. He pulls Will closer to him, tilts his head up with a hand tacky with drying cum and kisses his yielding lips. Will doesn’t return the kiss, just breathes into Hannibal’s mouth until he pulls away.

“Such a very good boy,” Hannibal whispers to him as he sits down in the chair again, pulling Will down and into his lap, running his hand along his bare torso and through his hair. “So perfect for me, Will.”

Will smiles and says, “Thank you, Daddy.” A pause, and then he curls into Hannibal’s chest and asks, “Do I get a reward?”

“What does my remarkable boy desire?”

He stretches his legs out over the arm of the chair. “Take me to see _Hamilton._ ”

“Your wish is my command,” Hannibal says with a chuckle.

“And a dog?”

“We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> -tėvelis: daddy  
> -mano berniukas: my boy  
> -prašau: please  
> -gražūs: beautiful  
> -mano širdis: my heart
> 
> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -mention of non-consensual activity during Hannibal's incarceration  
> -talk of spanking/single spank  
> -possible minor dubcon toward the end, but Will does consent
> 
> Credit where credit is due:  
> - _[Reaper](https://www.amazon.com/REAPER-Boston-Underworld-Book-2-ebook/dp/B01FYFXB74?ie=UTF8&qid=1465263920&ref_=la_B00U2562W8_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1)_ is an actual book by Ashleigh Zavarelli. I haven't read it, but the summary made it sound right up Hannibal's alley.  
>  -If you're wondering why the Lithuanian words aren't italicized, as is currently the norm, check out [this amazingly hilarious video explanation](https://youtu.be/24gCI3Ur7FM) by author Daniel José Older.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would have this posted by Monday. Instead, I've increased the length of the story by two chapters. Oops?

The first postcard arrived a week after Chad woke up in his own bed with a nasty headache, still in his bathrobe, missing patches of leg hair that had come off with the duct tape. Or perhaps it arrived earlier than that and simply was left on the counter. Chad honestly doesn’t know. Those first few days were so bright with the opportunity afforded simply by still being _alive_ that all extraneous details never took root in his memory.

He remembers going downstairs and immediately heading into the study, expecting to find his grandmother’s chair toppled or perhaps broken or at least traumatized. But the study was cleaner than he had left it the night before. The chair had been meticulously steam-cleaned; one of the covered buttons that had come loose had been tightened. His books had been unboxed and placed on the shelves. They’d even hung his curtains. It was as if the shoemaker’s elves’ cannibalistic cousins had paid him a visit.

Chad had slept surprisingly well and was completely moved into the study now. Even better, he could now count himself among a handful of people who were well and truly permanently off the menu. So he tried very hard all afternoon to be mad about the ordeal of the night before but, in the end, it simply wasn’t in his nature.

So when he finally notices the postcard, it is mixed into the identical pile of junk mail that seems to collect on everyone’s counters. Chad can’t recall any of his friends or relatives going on vacation, let alone any that would send him a postcard.

It’s frail and aged, static-clung to the back of a Chinese take-out delivery menu. The image is fairly nondescript--Alford Park in the fall, thin broomsticks of trees in the foreground separated by lush orange and yellow foliage in the back by a dusty path and clear pond. There’s a lake, and a ship upon it, and the first pastels of sunrise-dusted Wisconsin sky. The painting, while nice, reminds Chad of something on the wall of a dentist’s office, or perhaps on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Quaint, but ultimately forgettable.

Chad flips it over after peeling it off of the glossy menu. There’s no address, no stamp, just the name “Timothy” in a handsome Copperplate. He holds the postcard flat underneath his desk lamp to look at the ink; it flows smoothly across the paper like oil paint floating over water. The marks are free from indentation, the paper devoid of tell-tale ink residue. Whoever wrote this had a very clear, practiced hand.

He’s suddenly very glad for Daphne’s calligraphy courses.

The next day, Chad walks up and down the street, looking for a Timothy, but there’s no one by that name in the neighborhood. He does, however, receive an invitation in for tea by a lovely octogenarian named Roberta. After three hours of crispy-thin sugar cookies and conversation, as well as a promise to stop in the following week, the mystery of the postcard had mostly slipped Chad’s mind.

At least, until the second one shows up a few days later. Chad has set food into the “why was I spared?” chapter of his post-survival life, because it doesn’t make _sense_. Everyone that matters thinks the Lecter-Grahams are dead. Will’s wife held a funeral for him. TattleCrime sells “my ship sailed over a cliff and all I got was this” paraphernalia. Most everyone who went into hiding has come out again.

Why leave Chad above ground? Or rather, he supposes, free from digestion?

After a night of too much scotch and not enough supper, he wakes up at the crack of noon. Instead of breakfast, he goes back to the scotch. Chad sits in the floor of his study in the same place as the night before--he hasn’t been able to bring himself to sit in his grandmother’s chair--staring at his artfully-hung curtains. He doesn’t drink the scotch, just sits there holding the tumbler, watching the sun move in the sky through the smocked organic voile.

The rumble of the mail truck around three finally jars him from his reverie. He shuffles his way to the front door and opens it just enough to squeeze his arm out and into the letterbox.

Bill, flier for a block party, bill, bill...and a postcard. There’s no return address, but this one has been mailed from Dayton. Chad flips it over to look at the front.

It’s an art print. Specifically, Gustav Klimt’s _The Kiss._ He flips it back to look for a message, but there’s nothing. Someone has taken the trouble to mail him a blank postcard of an Art Nouveau piece.

Chad feels his stomach drop. There’s a freight elevator in his insides, and he’s an abandoned building, slowly crumbling to dust. He pads back into the study and files the postcard with the other one on the “incoming” section of his letter organizer.

It feels like filing an ever-growing curse.

The third one arrives the following week, and Chad can’t say he wasn’t expecting it. There’s a shortage of scotch in his house; he hasn’t left in days beyond meeting Roberta for more tea and neighborhood gossip. Someone’s son is hanging around with hooligans, and it looks like a lesbian couple is moving into the yellow house across the street, and would Chad please escort her to church on Sunday, because she thinks he’d enjoy the sermon very much. Chad nods and agrees; he could use something less concrete and more metaphysical in his life. If nothing else, he’ll get to see Roberta’s collection of hats, which he has been promised is phenomenal.

Chad sees the corner of the postcard sticking out of his mailbox as he approaches his front door, armed with nothing more than a tin of butter cookies. He can’t focus on anything else, not the crack in the sidewalk that he trips over or the girls playing double dutch across from his house. Chad pulls out the postcard, and suddenly his lungs are too small for air.

It’s a photo postcard of the light bulb in his basement, sent from Chicago. On the back of the card, in black Sharpie and all caps, is the word “see”.

He can’t get into his house fast enough, scrambling into the study, his hands shaking as he pulls out the other two postcards. Chad looks at the second one, and then Googles it, clicks through to Wikipedia, and finds out that the painting is also known as _Lovers_. He pours over the first one, rereads the title and description and location, and remembers why Wisconsin seems significant.

The middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin.

The Lovers.

The basement.

Chad hasn’t been down there since he woke up in his own room, but now he clings to the railing of the stairs like a lifeline. Each step feels like a further descent into hell; he halfway expects to see Virgil at the bottom, motioning past Brutus and Cassius and Judas toward some fourth mouth for him to crawl into. It doesn’t help that Chad would actually make his home in the eighth circle; according to Dante, he’s worse than Will, worse than Hannibal.

He reaches for the pull chain on the light bulb and hits a piece of paper instead. Chad rips it down, turning on the light as he does. The plastic sheeting is gone; the navy chair is still in the middle of the room; the wooden office chair has been repaired, because of course it fucking has. He sighs and looks at the paper in his hand.

“waitingforyou” it says in that same black Sharpie.

Chad doesn’t bother turning off the light--let the damn thing burn out, he’s going to superglue the door to the basement shut, anyway--just makes his way back to the study to pour over the postcards, looking for clues. The second postcard was likely to point out who left the first; he figures that the third was telling him he was taking too long to do...whatever it is these sociopaths are expecting of him. Which leaves the first one.

He stares at it for an hour, can’t figure out why a vintage postcard of a goddamn park in Wisconsin is important.

Fuck it.

Chad throws some clothes and his toothbrush in an overnight bag, grabs his keys, and heads out to his car to make the thirteen-hour drive to Kenosha.

 

* * *

 

The sun is rising over Lake Michigan, and Chad’s hoping for a _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ moment, because he has no idea what he’s looking for. His best guess is to walk along the path pictured in the postcard and hope for revelation.

Strolling along, he wonders if Hannibal and Will took this same morning constitutional, if that’s where they’d gotten the idea to send him here. Chad imagines himself following in their footsteps, trailing the two men walking arm in arm like a couple of old world friends; they don’t strike him as the type to hold hands. Will still shies away from public displays of affection; Hannibal is too vain to admit he needs assistance, that he carries a walking stick because it is fashionable. So Will links arms with him, and Hannibal finds it charming, and pretends that he doesn’t know that Will does it in case his steps should falter.

He can see where the obsession lies, why they have fans. It’s a romance worthy of Porphyria’s lover.

Chad wanders around this one familiar, haunting area of the park in quiet desperation and growing irritation, mostly at himself for falling into the trap of caring about the love life of madmen. The lake is beautiful, and the sky is beautiful, and the trees are--

And that’s when he sees it, glinting farther down the path, a hint of metal that doesn’t belong.

He speedwalks, refuses to run no matter how much he wants to. Chad doesn’t want to solve the puzzle but he _needs_ to, maybe more than he needed to survive the encounter in his basement less than two weeks ago. Slowing down, darting his eyes around and looking over his shoulder to see if he’s being followed, he come to a stop in front of the tree

Clipped to a low-hanging branch is a fly fishing lure, tied around a ballpoint click pen from TattleCrime instead of the traditional metal shank.

Chad’s been hooked.

 

***

 

From the relative safety of his nondescript chain hotel room that evening, Chad logs into the TattleCrime forums.

 

 **USERNAME:** Timothy

 **PASSWORD:** waitingforyou

 

 **WELCOME** Chad!

**YOU HAVE 1 NEW MESSAGE.**

 

He can’t even bear to click on it with his eyes open, so he swallows, closes them, and starts spam-clicking the area with the button to his inbox.

 

**_Hello, Timothy._ **

**_I am delighted that you have made your way safely to Kenosha and hope that your long drive was at least a pleasant one. We found the route from Philadelphia to be a very scenic one. The peacefulness of the dairy lands have been a balm to our healing, no matter what my boy may have told you otherwise._ **

**_Regretfully, I must inform you that we have already taken our leave of Wisconsin. I would, however, very much appreciate the honor of your presence in a private chat this evening at eight o’clock._ **

**_Regards,_ **

**_Rupert Buoy_ **

 

Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal fucking Lecter. Well, Hannibal fucking _Will,_ but Chad’s been doing his utmost not to think about that. The fact remains that a known cannibalistic serial killer wants to sit down and talk, probably about how Chad would prefer to be marinated.

He only has an hour or so until their “date” (what even _is_ his life at this point), so he decides to poke around the forum, maybe look for his niece. Chad finds her fairly quickly, since she uses the same username for her Skype. There’s an impressive number of threads attributed to her, most of them within the fanfiction subforum, as Chad has suspected.

The proud uncle part of him is pleased to see that she has some of the highest-rated works. The rest of him is fairly horrified that his seventeen-year-old niece is writing bondage porn.

Chad is almost grateful when eight o’clock rolls around and his browser alerts him that Rupert Buoy has sent him an instant message.

 

**_Timothy?_ **

_unfortunately so._

**_You are prompt. I appreciate that._ **

_i didn’t want to be rude._

**_On the contrary. You are a pleasant and curiously tolerant individual._ **

_mama raised me right._

**_So it would seem._ **

_i do feel strangely obligated to point out that you probably don’t want to make so many overt references to cannibalism._

**_Oh?_ **

_timothy_

_rupert holmes_

_the buoys_

_how did you manage to stay free for so long?_

**_If you hide in plain sight, no one suspects you of hiding, at all. And this is, after all, an enthusiast forum. Such things are to be expected here._ **

_suppose you have a point there._

**_I don’t make a habit of being purposeless in any avenue of my life._ **

 

Chad rubs a hand down his face and is surprised to not pull away a palm drenched with sweat. He’s feeling more ludicrous than nervous, to be honest, sitting here next to a cheery laminated advertisement for free continental breakfast, wearing yesterday’s undershirt and boxers, talking to the most dangerously elegant man in the world on a forum designed for serial killer fans.

 

_so...how can i help?_

**_Are you so eager to cast your lot in with us?_ **

_it seems like the decision’s been made for me._

**_I would never presume. We are all the masters of our own fate. How we react to external stimuli rests entirely within ourselves. It is as God intended._ **

_...so you don’t need my help?_

**_Hardly, but we do desire your friendship._ **

_you’re joking._

**_If I were joking, Timothy, you would know._ **

_is that why you left me alive?_

**_I left you alive because that is what my boy desired of me._ **

_you really do love him don’t you?_

**_More than my freedom and bodily autonomy._ **

**_But you yourself know what such love is like._ **

 

Chad chokes down the hysterical laughter that wants to escape from his lungs, because this is absurd. He’s obviously tripping balls and has landed up in a universe called _My Little Cannibal: Murder Is Magic,_ which makes a surprising amount more sense than the universe he inhabited two weeks ago. And yes, his love for Daphne would have made Chad commit a number of terrible crimes, but that’s...that’s hardly the same.

If he keeps telling himself that, he may eventually believe it.

 

_is this the part where you tell me that you’d love to have me over for dinner?_

**_We have no designs on consuming you, Timothy._ **

_well thank god for that._

**_You have been entirely too helpful to become tartare. It would be a waste._ **

_that’s...good._

**_Instead, we would like to remain in touch. I imagine we will speak on here occasionally. Will would enjoy that, at least. You are under no obligation to respond to whatever physical mail you receive. In fact, it will likely be impossible, as we will refrain from divulging our address, though I suspect you will be able to divine our location from time to time._ **

_why would you take the chance of being found?_

**_I don’t think it would be very wise of you to arrange such an event._ **

_i meant that your messages could be intercepted._

_i’m not dumb enough to try and turn you in._

**_Excellent._ **

_why me though?_

_you have access to hundreds of fans._

_why not choose someone else?_

**_Because we like you._ **

 

Chad _thunks_ his head back against the headrest on the swivel chair. He doesn’t know which of his high school senior classmates nominated him “Most Congenial” but he’s going to hunt down every single one of them and tell them to take it back.

 

**_It will do the two of us good to maintain a sense of normalcy while we are transient. The illusion of permanence is more reliable than permanence itself. Will was socialized after my surrender, and I am loathe to see him forget that he is capable of friendliness. As for myself, I became somewhat accustomed to receiving mail during my stay at the BSHCI. The letters, while often gauche, were often the only joy I found outside of my own imagination._ **

_i had heard from my niece that you had quite the set-up in jail._

**_It is always prudent to doubt a face composed for public consumption. There was...much left to be desired. You will forgive me for sparing you the more sordid and unpleasant details._ **

 

He feels oddly sick to his stomach; his brain screams at him to apologize for unknown events long transpired that are hardly his fault. It shouldn’t bother him so much, thinking about someone as merciless as the Chesapeake Ripper being abused while under lock and key. Still, he doesn’t enjoy knowing that anyone has been hurt. Even the worst of humanity deserves a measure of dignity, no matter how much Daphne disagreed.

Chad is grateful to be rescued from that line of thought by the ping of his browser.

 

**_At some time in the future, however, once we have all become more acquainted and my boy and I have settled down, perhaps you would like to visit our home._ **

_i’m not sure that i’ll ever be good enough friends with you to trust you like that._

_no offense intended._

**_None taken. But Timothy?_ **

_yes, rupert?_

**_You will._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -mention of non-consensual activity during Hannibal's incarceration
> 
> Credit where credit is due:  
> -The first postcard looks like [this](https://static2.artfire.com/uploads/product/5/45/40045/7940045/7940045/large/alford_park_on_lake_michigan_kenosha_wisconsin_wi_vintagecard_2b27079c.jpg).  
> -And here is Gustav Klimt's painting [_The Lovers_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_\(Klimt\)).  
>  -And here is Robert Browning's poem "[Porphyria's Lover](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46313)".  
> -Finally, Rupert Holmes wrote the song "[Timothy](https://youtu.be/DGNdvKvbxYQ)" and it was recorded by The Buoys. Some people believe that the song is about cannibalism, but it's a well-known fact that Timothy was a duck.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [points at new chapter count] Oops. Again. My hand keeps slipping.

Will had no illusions about what his and Hannibal’s respective sex drives were like, given their age. Additionally, while Will had been in excellent health prior to tumbling head over feet into the Atlantic from a remarkable and, ostensibly, unsurvivable height, his body is most certainly worse for wear. He was surprised to learn, after breaking the surface of a cresting wave, still clinging to Hannibal as he kicked and fought their way to oxygen, that Hannibal’s health was much poorer than Will expected.

Hannibal still refuses to talk about it, does nothing more than maintain that Will saw him in the BSHCI, saw the set-up he had been granted. He insisted that he was simply starting to feel his age, nothing more. Will wants to push for details--well, _needs,_ to be more honest--because he knows there must be more to it, something Hannibal isn’t telling him. It isn’t the first time Hannibal has withheld information, not the first time he’s dealt out slices of truth as he saw fit, and he suspects it won’t be the last. But usually, it’s for Hannibal’s own amusement, and Will sees nothing potentially amusing about this situation.

Will tries not to think about it too much; he’s woken up too many times from nightmares where Hannibal died there in the rocks, where Will’s breath wasn’t enough for Hannibal’s lungs, where the antlers receded back into the Wendigo’s head and became horribly, utterly human again. He still spends some nights sleepless because he can’t stop checking Hannibal’s chest for expansion. There was a time he would have given anything to watch Hannibal stop breathing. Now that he’s seen it, Will has little interest in repeating the experience.

Beyond doing it himself, anyway, but Will has no current designs, not when they’ve so recently cheated death together.

That survival has kept them both in relatively good spirits. It was Hannibal who set up their most recent game, after all, so perhaps Will is worrying over nothing. Before that, when they were both either too ill or taking turns at being stuffed full of painkillers, the game had been watching reality television and creating elaborate murder tableaus (Will) and equally elaborate menu plans (Hannibal). When they were trying to stay awake and survive on the way to the safehouse, it was quid pro quo of terrible kisses and embarrassing dates and awkward handjobs, all of which Will was thoroughly confused that Hannibal ever had himself.

Will hadn’t wanted to admit to any of it. He had known exactly how it would go.

“You already know how charming I was with women the vast majority of my life,” Will had said, refusing to look at Hannibal except for out of the corner of his eye.

Hannibal smiled like he’d won a prize. “That seems to have changed in the past few years.”

“Molly and I were a good match, Hannibal,” and Will had torn off the adhesive tape over Hannibal’s bandage more forcefully than necessary, which only made Hannibal more pleased.

“I never said you weren’t.”

“Uh-huh. You never would, not out loud.”

Hannibal closed his eyes as Will cleaned the wound. It was infuriating, that small twitches and nearly indiscernible tells were the only evidence of discomfort for Hannibal. He would wince or blink, maybe breathe a bit harder, but otherwise, if Will wasn’t so in tune with him, he would never know that Hannibal was in pain.

“I would not, no,” replied Hannibal. “Your life was your own to live. I was merely curious--”

“Oh,” Will snorted, “you’re always just ‘merely curious’.”

“--if you had been prone to the same fumbling uncertainty with your encounters with other men.” Hannibal opened his eyes before asking, “Or have you struck out even more with your masculine liaisons?”

Will snapped his gloves off and threw them in Hannibal’s face, and that had been the end of the conversation. He stewed in Hannibal’s laughter with the prickling awareness that he was letting himself be manipulated, and Hannibal would reciprocate when he attended to Will.

Now that they had spent as much time in each other’s presence as they had in each other’s heads, though, the games were engaging again. Will felt like they were sitting back in Hannibal’s office even though they were, in reality, sitting on opposite sides of a full-size mattress. This time, though, neither of them had an ulterior motive.

It hadn’t been more than a few months before they were sitting on the same side of the mattress. In all honesty, Will would have moved over sooner--now that he was allowed, he didn’t want to keep his hands off Hannibal. He wanted all the things his first fevered, then cooled brain had demanded for so many years.

 _He stands before me, terrible, imposing. The darkness surrounds him, moves within him,_ is _him. But I am the darkness, too. I let the mist eddy in. I welcome it. Welcome him._

_We are the same. Equal. It’s been so long since we stood on the same ground._

_And that’s why I choose to kneel. That’s why I choose to look up._

_It’s why I call him Father._

Will extracts himself from the illusion, dismisses the feathers from his skin and the black blood from his eyes as he gasps his way back to reality. Now that he’s had a taste, Will craves more. He needs a fix.

He needs his daddy, and Daddy isn’t showing interest.

Will’s fairly certain that no one in the goddamn world has a refractory period of two-and-a-half fucking weeks. And he’s made overtures, though. _God,_ has he made overtures, feeling ridiculous as fuck, but Will has no idea what he’s doing. All he has is his imagination and the small amount of fiction he found on the TattleCrime forums which, while titillating, wasn’t entirely educational.

Hannibal could be putting off what promises to be a fulfilling sex life due to his physical health, Will supposes, except that Will has made it entirely clear that he is fine with doing all of the work. And, considering that Hannibal keeps pushing himself to his limits, Will is disinclined to believe that it has anything to do with his recovering body.

“I propose a game,” Hannibal had said. Well, Will had won the game, and he was not prepared to let his reward be anything but recurring.

 

* * *

 

Will and Hannibal have discovered that neither one is much for road trip conversation; given Will’s increasing frustration, that’s probably for the best. Hannibal still isn’t up to drive, which means Will gets to spend the entire trip watching Hannibal side-eye him smugly from behind one of a dozen psychology and medical journals that Will helpfully “liberated” for him from different colleges along the way.

“You exude professorial madness,” Hannibal had told him. “No one would think to question you.”

“Anything to keep you from reading Sherrilyn Kenyon out loud for another thirteen hour trip.”

Hannibal had raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”

Will had smirked, “Anything, Tėvelis,” and been curtly nodded at, and Hannibal had gone back to downloading fanfiction, and Will is _losing his damn mind_ . Again. And it’s Hannibal’s fault. _Again._

He never knew he had this urge within him. Will has freedom, and he wants to just...hand it back over? To someone who seems to have wanted it exactly once? For yet another reason, what the _fuck_ is wrong with him?

Beyond all of the obvious things, that is. Will only has the first leg of this road trip to devote to psychoanalysis, and his brain is being anything but helpful. If this is Hannibal’s kink, how long has he had it? How did he discover it? Did _he_ call someone tėvelis? Has someone else called _him--_

Will white-knuckles the steering wheel. He can’t even consider it. Hannibal is his. _His_. No one else’s.

“You think very loudly, Will,” Hannibal says from the passenger’s seat in the safety of the lighthouse across the sea.

 _I reach out to grab his hand, presumably to hold it, and hit the release on his seatbelt instead. My left hand pulls the steering wheel simultaneously. I press the gas pedal to the floor. The car swerves in a wild arc. His head impacts the windshield, pops through it like a moth from his_ own fucking chrysalis _and--_

“ _Very_ loudly.” Hannibal turns a page in his journal. “I don’t suppose we’ll be stopping for the night any time soon?”

Will scoffs. “Do you have a hot date, Dr. Lecter?”

“Ah, now I _know_ you’re upset.”

“We can stop at the next available roadside hellhole, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“If you would be so kind as to choose one with wireless internet.”

He does. They do. The details elude Will, because he stops paying attention and just drives. Will Graham goes to sleep at 1:17pm in Medina County, Ohio, and wakes up at 2:02pm in Richfield, also Ohio, also Will Graham. Unconscious Will is apparently not quite as pissed off as Awake Will since the former carried the bags into the room and the latter would have left them in the car.

As the world sharpens and refocuses, Will sees a large amount of orange in various shapes, sizes, and shades. These turn into a bed, a lamp, a desk, and a chair. He scowls, realizing that he’s going to be spending the next few days living in a folksy tribute to Fiestaware.

“Um, Hannibal?”

Hannibal perches, resplendent on his ochre-painted throne, holding court with the apricot-laminated kitchen with its hideous tangerine stove. He’s unpacking their cooler and storing carefully labeled Pyrex containers in the marigold-tinted refrigerator; Hannibal doesn’t even bother emptying the canvas shopping bag of canned bads. “Yes, Will?” he asks with obvious disinterest.

“Have we driven into genre television?” he asks, gesturing at the hideous wallpaper and strange retro ceramic sunbursts that hang on the wall. “I think Wally watches this show.”

Hannibal’s mouth twitches in distaste as he closes the refrigerator. “What, you had no books in your home? No games? Did you spend no quality time with your son?”

Will grits his teeth and refuses to rise to the bait. He wills his feet to the floor and glares at Hannibal, making it very clear that he has no intention of helping him with his jacket. There are no niceties here, not now. If Hannibal wants to be independent, here’s his chance. He should take no joy in watching Hannibal’s hesitation when shrugging off his ludicrous, unnecessary suit coat; he shouldn’t pinpoint each crease that develops in his face at the pain he still gets because he started refusing anything more effective than a double dose of over-the-counter pain meds several months ago.

But he does.

Will does at least afford Hannibal his dignity by not watching further, just passes over his casuals as he unpacks the suitcase. He begins to put their clothes away, not even bothering to change out of his own from their day on the road because, unlike _some_ assholes, Will knows how to dress comfortably. No matter how loudly he opens the drawers of the orange pressboard dresser, he can’t miss the soft slither of Hannibal’s coat from the back of the chair, the slipping sound of fabric over latex paint.

This isn’t how it should be. Not after Chad Eastwick’s study, not after finding calm with Hannibal’s cock in his mouth and the casual torture of his own. He and Hannibal should be on some extended kinky field trip on their way to New York City, not suffering in this oppressive silence.

Wait.

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm.”

“Why did we need wireless?” Will flips the lid on the suitcase and turns to look at Hannibal, who immediately feigns nonchalance in his red sweater.

“Is it so hard to believe that I enjoy maintaining a connection with the outside world now that I have rejoined it, at last?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Will spits out. “You’re going to talk to Chad without me.”

Hannibal’s eyes flicker up to meet Will’s. “Am I?”

“Goddammit, Hannibal. The plan was to get back on the road for a few hours and drive somewhere with wireless in case we got tracked. Not to mention, you know, chat with him together.”

“I don’t see why we can’t accomplish that from here.”

Will throws the shirts he’s holding on the ground. He doesn’t know why, exactly, he feels like throwing a fit over this beyond the fact that he really needs to have a tantrum. Hannibal’s changed the plan, but Hannibal always changes the plan. This isn’t anything new. His desire to behave like a brat is, however, but he doesn’t examine the urge, just embraces it.

He can feel Hannibal’s disapproving stare, but Will can’t meet his eyes. Will’s as embarrassed as he is thrilled by his own behavior. This feels like a breakthrough. He doesn’t know why; it simply is, yet another organic development in his relationship both to and with Hannibal. If they are going to survive as equals, maybe it requires the trade off that sometimes they simply _aren’t._

Maybe Will really does need to break as much as Hannibal needs to break him.

Hannibal clears his throat, crosses his legs and folds his hands on his lap. “Will--”

“Oh, is that what this is?” he asks Hannibal, shouting, pointing at his posture. “Are we having conversations again, because I thought we’d moved past that.”

Hannibal’s eyes widen ever so slightly, what passes for an eyeroll. “I thought perhaps we should keep things professional, since you keep trying to press the issue otherwise.”

Will restrains from stomping, but only barely. He knows Hannibal caught the upward twitch of his leg. How could he not? Hannibal catches everything.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Will finally says.

“I take it you haven’t heard yourself propositioning me since your bit of envelope pushing in Mr. Eastwick’s study?”

The world doesn’t stop, and time doesn’t stop, because those aren’t possible occurrence, but Will thinks he may have a very good case for proving otherwise. This is Hannibal, being Hannibal, playing his mind games, telling Will the most compelling explanation for his own reality. The person sitting across the room from him isn’t a person, after all, the suit really is that compelling.

Will was so sure a moment ago about picking this fight, but he was wrong, so wrong. He’s never been on Hannibal’s level. He made a mistake in choosing to follow Hannibal’s lead in this. Will never learns. Hannibal only prompted this change in their relationship to see Will humiliated. They aren’t equals, have never been equals, could never be equals, should never be equals--

“What ever led you to believe that you were the first?” Hannibal asks him. His head is cocked to one side, appraising Will like any good psychiatrist should. The epitome of clinical detachment. “I never disclosed any such information to you.”

Will feels his face crumple. “Hannibal, no.” Tears of embarrassment and regret and utter frustration prickle in his eyes.

“Perhaps you jumped to some not altogether unreasonable conclusions when I suggested we play our little game.”

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

Hannibal sighs and shifts his hanging leg slightly. “Tell me, Will. Truthfully now.”

He hears the stag trample his vocal cords underhoof. “Hannib--”

“Do you think I made Bedelia do similarly before I took her to my bed?”

_I cross the room in one, two, a half strides. My fingers stop shaking when they’re woven in red knit v-neck. The muscles in my arms slacken slightly though I yank him to his feet and slam him up against the wall of the kitchenette. He grimaces, groans quietly, but I know better. He doesn’t feel pain. He isn’t human._

_That’s okay. Neither am I._

_My palm flattens over his throat. I dig my fingers in. He doesn’t stop me, so I push harder. He doesn’t struggle so I keep pushing keep pushing keep pus_

Hannibal’s hand flutters at the side of Will’s face. He eases the pressure on his windpipe.

“Don’t think for two seconds I won’t kill you, Hannibal.”

Very quietly, Will hears, “I know you will, sweet boy.”

Will laughs or sneers or sobs, some desperate ugly noise clawing out from deep in his gut. “Don’t call me that. Now now.”

“You fight too hard.” Hannibal sputters and coughs and they’re surrounded by sand and rock and dark water and inky night. “Such a wild thing.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Will yells.

Hannibal shakes his head. “I would not have you tamed, mano širdis.” He coughs again, and the wind rushes past Will’s ears. Ocean salt stings in his open wounds.

And Will is trembling again, a boy again, scared in Hannibal’s house again, begging for the truth again, wanting to cling to whatever reality Hannibal wants to offer so long as he’ll join him on the life raft and not _leave_.

“Do you remember what I said?” Hannibal asks, disentangling Will’s hand from his shirt, then from his throat. Will lets him lace their fingers together, a Gordian knot of digits over Hannibal’s heart. “What did Daddy tell you?”

 _“Daddy.”_ Will crashes into Hannibal’s chest, trapping their hands between them, and this is what relief feels like. He hasn’t been abandoned, hasn’t been used and cast aside, “Like Jack, like Alana, don’t throw me away--!”

Hannibal shushes him, kissing the parts of Will’s face that he can reach. Every kiss is like a balm, a blessing, precious. “Daddy would never dare leave you again.”

“Then why--”

“Do you remember when Daddy said he would train you?” Hannibal squeezes Will’s hands tightly.

Will sniffles and nods.

“That your pleasure was now mine?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do.”

Hannibal takes the opportunity to wipe Will’s nose with the back of Will’s hand. “And what have you been doing, mano berniukas?”

“I…” Will swallows and admits, “I don’t know. I was just so mad that you…” He pauses as the realization finally hits him. “You weren’t paying attention to me.”

“If I had simply gone along with your wishes,” Hannibal explains, “I would not be a very good daddy, now would I?”

Will isn’t sure he can bring himself to speak, so he shakes his head with his eyes scrunched shut. He knows he’s been manipulated again, only this time he was complicit in it, consented to it. Will couldn’t be angry at being led down a path of his own enabling if he tried. Not anymore. Now he welcomes it, wants to welcome any part of him that Hannibal awakens, wants to lose himself in this small state, wants to be Hannibal’s boy in every sense of the word.

“Use your words, boy,” says Hannibal, as if he can read Will’s mind.

“No, Daddy. You wouldn’t.” He lets Hannibal kiss the tears off his face, off his eyes. Hannibal’s hands make their way out from between their chests and come up to frame Will’s face.

“Will,” he whispers, and Will opens his eyes. “Will, is this what you want? Truly?”

He takes in a shuddering breath. “Yeah.”

“Not because of my callousness to you?”

“I don’t appreciate your methods,” Will admits, “but I understand your madness.”

And Hannibal smiles, wide, charming, beautiful. Will leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth until Hannibal closes it and kisses him back. It’s sweet and slow, a reassurance that there is still gentleness between them, that pain and rough edges aren’t all that they are made of.

“You know I will punish you, yes?” Hannibal asks while their eyes are still closed.

“I know, yeah.”

Hannibal waits until Will opens his eyes again. “Do you want to talk about it first?”

“No.” Will answers so quickly that it surprises them both.

“A word?”

He’s completely breathless when he says, “I don’t want an out.”

Hannibal looks at him in complete awe and disbelief. “Are you certain?”

Will grins. “Yeah, Daddy. Show me what you’ve got.” He slides his hands up Hannibal’s shoulders and into his hair. Will grips it in both fists and tugs Hannibal’s head to the side so he can breathe into his ear. _“Punish me.”_

He snarls as he grabs Will’s forearms, using his leverage and Will’s surprise to force him back into the room. Hannibal pushes him again, and Will falls backward and onto the floor; he advances as Will scrambles backwards on his hands, propelling himself with his heels until his back hits the wall.

“You will shower,” Hannibal orders. “You will use my soap and shampoo, not the hideous products you normally choose for yourself. You will be fastidious in cleansing yourself and rub your skin raw if necessary. You will dress in a clean t-shirt and boxers, and then you will come and stand here in this very corner you have backed yourself into until I tell you otherwise.” He crouches down in front of Will to grasp his chin in one hand, then asks, “Does my boy understand?”

And Will doesn’t know exactly what possesses him, though his bet is on the raging hard on that has drained all the blood from his brain, but he answers, “Your boy understands, tėvelis.”

Hannibal looks at him like he’s going to eat him alive, and Will isn’t entirely sure in what manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -non-explicit mention of past Molly/Will  
> -non-explicit mention of past Bedelia/Hannibal


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the kink. Yes, it is _definitely_ that kind of party.
> 
> Many thanks to [thymogenic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thymogenic/pseuds/thymogenic/works) for joining the beta pool! I am very much in her debt. <3

Hannibal watches Will disappear into the bathroom, Hannibal’s own toiletry bag in hand. He had expected Will to look back at least once for reassurance. But Will hadn’t; he'd merely gathered what he needed, and done as Hannibal had ordered, perfectly compliant. Perhaps not at ease, but no one facing well-earned discipline ever is. 

Not for the first time, Hannibal is acutely aware that he does not deserve Will Graham. He does not deserve the level of trust that has just been placed in him. He does not deserve free reign to do as he pleases with Will’s body. He certainly does not deserve the adoration of a boy he intends to break.  

But Hannibal has never once worried about what he does and does not deserve. It’s a trait carefully cultivated that has served him well over the years. Will, however, is still unused to looking in the mirror and seeing himself elevated, and Will deserves better.  

If complete and utter control is what Will wishes to give him, then Hannibal must comply. Will is in search of punishment, and punishment is the gift Hannibal will give him in return. 

It isn’t as though Hannibal is, himself, unused to the lash. His young adulthood in Paris yielded many taboo pleasures--who was he to inflict pain on others had he never experienced it himself? Granted, it was a very different kind of pain, but it had taught Hannibal how to recede into his own mind, to detach himself from the trappings of what lesser persons deemed reality.

This was not Will’s experience, however. The nature of Will’s gift made the world _too_ real, made the realities of everyone around him his own. It had been Hannibal’s intention upon discovering Will’s encephalitis to push him until he understood the truth that Hannibal had learned all those years before in Paris. The more Will saw the world as unreal, the greater the mass of hallucinations, the easier Will would find it to see. 

His curiosity as to whether such a plan would work? The necessity to frame Will for his own artistic endeavors and culinary delights? As far as Hannibal’s concerned, that’s quite beside the point. 

But then, for the first time in his life, Hannibal’s carefully crafted scheme had unraveled. Will’s absence tarnished the halls of his memory palace, an ache that confined Hannibal to the life outside of his own head. 

He had never been in love before. A romantic, yes, but never in love. Will Graham had ruined everything. And now, Will invites Hannibal to ruin him.

That boy will be the death of him, he thinks. 

Hannibal sits back in his chair, closes his eyes, and enters his palace, seeking inspiration for the punishment to come.  

 

***   
 

Hannibal strolls through unfamiliar woods toward where he innately knows the inner sanctum of his palace to be. The forest is new, as is the monstrous presence he feels watching him from deep within the shade of the trees. He knows this is Will’s design, but Hannibal is unafraid. There is very little in his mind that frightens him, and Will would never create an obstacle Hannibal could not overcome. 

His gaze is drawn into the trees as he walks. Hannibal swears that he sees the flash of a great stag, adorned in feathers as black as blood, but he cannot be certain. The wendigo knows it though, emerges from Hannibal’s body and goes to greet it as a friend. 

Hannibal watches the monster within himself kneel. The wendigo caresses the side of the stag’s face, and the stag leans into it. He watches them touch foreheads, eyes closed, and black blood drips from both sets of antlers. Hannibal’s monster doesn’t acknowledge him again; until now, he’d never even known what it looked like, but there’s no mistaking that it dwells within his soul.

**SEE** , the beasts say without speaking to or regarding him. 

Hannibal tips his head in deference. “Always.” 

They blur before his eyes. Hannibal can no longer ascertain where the stag ends and the wendigo begins. Perhaps they’re nothing more than an ouroboros, consuming and changing each other over and over in an endless cycle.  

He walks. 

The bridge over the Ponte Vecchio is not new, though it is older here, still under construction. He imagines that it was broken during its movement from its old location in the Jardins du château de Versailles. Hannibal wonders why Will would have moved it in the first place, if he had even visited the gardens to see how rich the view was from above, like a lush green river of parterres. 

Then, the reason for the move comes into view. There, at the exact center of the bridge, is a lovely young girl in waders. She bends to pick a lure, holds it cupped in her hands and whispers to it before tying it to line. The girl casts into the stream below where Hannibal’s drawings float. He smiles at her as he passes by; stopping would be too painful. 

“Don’t think you can sneak past me without saying hi,” she says, and the walls of Hannibal’s Baltimore kitchen rise from the bridge. She reels in her line from the sink, and plucks her ear from the lure. 

Hannibal stops, for he must; he knows when he’s being chastised, and it isn’t undeserved. “Hello, Abigail,” he says as he leans back against the steel of the refrigerator. A gun floats in the air in front of his eyes, and he wonders if Will’s palace would pull the trigger on its master’s behalf. Hannibal is certain that the gun was Will’s own SIG-Sauer P226, but it keeps fading into a Beretta 84FS, then back again, as if the weapon cannot make up its mind. He is puzzled as to how he knows the make and model of the second gun. 

“See?” Abigail asks, blending the edges of her severed ear into the side of her head as if it were made of clay. 

“Always,” Hannibal replies. “I did not know you had learned to fish.” 

Abigail shrugs. “You learn a lot of things when you live in someone’s head.” She casts again, this time with no lure. “How’s Will?” 

“Awaiting the repercussions of his misbehavior,” Hannibal replies. 

“Don’t be too hard on him, okay?” 

“I make no promises.” 

“You never do,” says Abigail, laughing. “Fine, then. Be as hard as he expects you to be.” 

Hannibal tenses his jaw. “Then I will likely be too hard on him.” 

“Will’s a big boy,” Abigail tells him. “He can take it.” The sink begins to quickly overflow, and they soon stand ankle-deep in murky water. “Or are you afraid that _you_ can’t?” 

“I am...uncertain of my own motivations in this endeavor.” 

“It’s just a sex thing, isn’t it?” 

“Certainly not,” answers Hannibal, holding his head high and haughtily. “It’s much more than that.” 

“But it was the first time, yeah? In that pretentious chair.” 

Hannibal hesitates; the water is knee high now. “I want his submission more than I seek personal release. But Will gained great pleasure in submitting at my feet. I found that more gratifying and pleasurable than the sexual act itself, as well as the subsequent release.” 

Abigail looks at him sideways with a sly grin. “So you _are_ scared, then.” 

Hannibal swallows before answering, “Terrified.” 

“Of?” 

“Losing control.” 

“You weren’t afraid with Alana,” Abigail reminds him. 

Very quietly, Hannibal says, “She wasn’t Will.” 

The waters recede; the gun lowers itself; the kitchen walls repel outward like same-sided magnets, and they stand on the bridge again. Hannibal pushes off from the refrigerator as it dissolves and approaches the side of the bridge to stand beside Abigail. He longs to stay and watch the sunrise with her, but the sun rises forever here; he can return later. “May I?” 

Abigail props her fishing rod against the ledge, and turns to look up at him. “May you what?” 

He says nothing more, merely holds out his arms. Her smile widens, and she walks into them of her own volition. Hannibal sighs and wraps her in his embrace, laying his head against the top of hers, stroking her hair and breathing in deeply. Abigail smells of blood and sandalwood and the sea. 

“I forgave you, you know. Wouldn’t have popped over from hanging out with Will’s dogs if I hadn’t.” She squeezes him, presses her ear against his beating heart. “He really has changed you. You never would’ve asked before.” 

Hannibal swallows, tears welling in his eyes. “He has.” Then he lets her shatter into pieces and float away in the sudden wind. 

He walks. 

The foyer is at least where he last left it, and the Norman Chapel is a more than welcome sight. Hannibal wonders if this would be a place more fitting of Will’s punishment; the ugly hotel room certainly will not do. But he doesn’t wish to taint the entrance to his home with sexual depravity, no matter how beautiful it will be. 

Will’s skeleton in the painting on the floor is elegant, and Hannibal leans to pay his respects, his knees bending the wrong way at right-angles to the floor. He runs his hand reverently over the curve of the skull, watches in fascination as antlers twist and wind their way between his fingers. Hannibal pulls his hand away, covered in thick black ink. He licks it from his palm, moaning quietly at the taste of Will’s blood in his mouth. It is a welcome addition since he first tasted it in Philadelphia. 

Hannibal laves his hand clean in utter bliss. As he sucks the last drop from his thumb, he turns his head to look up at himself in the balcony. 

A young boy stands there, staring down, his shadow long and crooked as it creeps across the chapel and over Hannibal. His clothes are tattered and dirty; he holds hands with a disembodied, rotting arm. The boy’s eyes are two hollow pits, but Hannibal doesn’t need to see him up close to know they are crawling with snails.

“See?” says Hannibal to himself. 

“Always.” 

“We should have eaten him while we had the chance,” young Hannibal asserts. “It’s too late now. We can’t kill him.” 

Hannibal rises, and walks up the shadow to face himself. His path is lit by fireflies; bright flowers bloom as he steps on each stair, twisting up the rails and along the banister. When he reaches his younger self, he bends down to pick himself up. The younger Hannibal clutches his sister’s arm to his chest like a favorite toy. 

“I know,” Hannibal tells the boy in his arms. 

Young Hannibal sighs. “It’s so much easier when other people make us. But Bedelia’s gone now.” 

“We’ll be seeing her soon enough.” 

“But she won’t convince us to eat him this time,” says young Hannibal. “And I’m hungry.” 

Hannibal swallows and continues his walk, now along the halls of his boyhood home. The screams are deafening, and the sobs his own. Still, he can do nothing but agree with his younger self. “So am I.” 

“You’ll have to kill for me again. Everything else tastes wrong.” 

“I find enjoyment in various cuisines,” Hannibal says. 

“Yes,” young Hannibal replies, “but _I_ don’t.” 

“Nothing will ever satisfy you like she did,” Hannibal whispers in his ear. “No other kill will be the same. No other flesh will be as sweet.” 

Young Hannibal rests his head on his counterpart’s shoulder. “We didn’t want to.” 

“No,” says Hannibal, shuddering. “No, we didn’t.” 

“But we saved her,” insists young Hannibal. “She wouldn’t hurt anymore. The bad man couldn’t have her anymore.” 

“Stop.” 

“No one could ever hurt her again. Not with us protecting her. If we hurt her, no one else would.” 

Hannibal’s voice shakes as he repeats, “Stop.” 

“But with her gone, it was just us,” young Hannibal says, “just us, and no one left to protect us.” 

A tear rolls down Hannibal’s cheek. “Please. Please, stop.” 

Young Hannibal sniffles and rubs his nose. “But he didn’t listen.” 

“No,” Hannibal says, ignoring the scraping pain in his knees and palms. “He did not, though we did stop _him.”_  

“But we can’t keep Will safe if we don’t eat him!” young Hannibal pleads. “And we can’t keep _us_ safe if we don’t eat him because you won’t lock him in the basement. And we’re so _hungry_ and _scared!”_ He wails for no more than a second before stuffing Mischa’s fist into his mouth to keep himself quiet. 

Hannibal rocks himself in his arms, shushing the child. He kisses his forehead, offers the comfort no one else ever did. “Daddy’s got you,” he says. “Daddy will keep you safe.” 

“Tėvelis,” young Hannibal murmurs around his sister’s thumb. “And Will?” 

“Will, too,” says Hannibal. 

“But…” The boy hesitates, and the screaming ceases as he sucks on the thumb. “We will kill again, right?” 

“Of course we will, darling.” 

Young Hannibal smiles around his mouthful, and crumbles to dust. 

But now, Hannibal’s lost his way. This is the Lecter castle, but the hallways have been altered. He must have taken a wrong turn while consoling himself. At least Hannibal can hear the strains of the second movement of Liszt’s S.109 again. Regardless, he’d have never chosen to come to the basement on his own. 

_seeeeeee_  

He turns, expecting to see the man in his nightmares in his cell. And Hannibal does, reaches out to touch the wings of broken bottles, marvels at the limbs bound in perpetual prayer. Randall Tier’s gorgeously grotesque transformation is nothing compared to this. To even attempt a comparison would be likening a first draft to a masterpiece. Where Will's current art has taken a more whimsical, modern turn, this is classicism at it's finest. 

Hannibal knows a tribute piece when he sees one, and he's never been more honored. 

“Oh Will,” he murmurs, pricking his fingers on the shards of glass. “It’s beautiful.” 

_seeeeeee_ repeats the wind outside the castle walls. 

Hannibal closes his eyes in reverence. “Always.” 

He walks. 

Hannibal finally finds what he’s seeking within the catacombs of the Norman Chapel, though he’s beyond certain that he never left his glass cage from the BSHCI in the spot where Will forgave him. Then again, he never left his nineteen-year-old self in either the cage or the catacombs, but Hannibal’s quickly discovering that he has little control on the redecoration of his palace. 

The stocks are the same as what he remembers, however, as is the beatific look on his young face, the same look that is mirrored on his current face. Hannibal stands and watches through the glass of the cage as the woman whips him. He can feel the welts swelling on his ass and back, absently wonders if the kantschu she wields might miss and hit the Verger brand. It’s a scar he’d much rather bear, though he must admit that the pain involved in its creation was-- 

“Exquisite,” groans the man in the stocks as he loses traction with one bare foot. It turns to a shout as his knee hits the floor and head jars back against the wood. 

“How old were we when this stopped being fun?” Hannibal asks, dropping to the same knee beside himself. 

He laughs. “Did it?” 

“Not the pain,” Hannibal clarifies. “I meant pretending that we can’t mask that pain.” 

Another lash. Another hiss. Another smile. 

“Ah. Probably around the same time the crowd discovered we preferred physical punishment.” 

“Is that this time?” 

The younger Hannibal flaps his hands to the side in the mimic of a shrug he can’t give. “It could be. Do you remember what happens next, old man?” 

Hannibal shakes his head. “I find it hard to believe we were ever so rude and impulsive.” 

“We always did wonder what we would taste like.” 

They hear the sound of boots on cement, and they both look up as far as the younger Hannibal is able. All Hannibal can remember is the smell of musk and leather, and the dark, and the set of legs that emerged from it. 

“Do we ever get accustomed to it?” asks the Hannibal in the line of fire. 

Hannibal runs a hand through his hair, sweeps the sweat-soaked strands out of the younger’s face. He presses a kiss to his own cheek. 

“Humiliation?” Hannibal sighs and continues stroking his hair. “No. Never.” He removes his hand just before the slap lands, maintains eye contact with himself until the hand returns to grasp the younger Hannibal’s jaw and force his face forward. 

“Oui, maître?” young Hannibal says to the owner of the pair of legs with a steady voice. He’s returned to the memory now, no longer self aware, or even aware of his counterpart’s presence beside him. 

Silence, and the rim of a cup at his lips. He drinks. 

Off and on, for the next hour, Hannibal watches as a cup of water emerges from the dark and his younger self drinks. It isn’t until the fifth cup of water that he realizes his predicament, and by then, it’s too late. He drops to both knees to press his legs together as his desperation increases, but the woman with the whip kicks them apart again. 

“Maître--” 

Another slap, and another, cracking across his face again and again. But Hannibal knows how this ends, knows that he was too proud to utter the word, that he still is, in spite of efforts otherwise. 

He’s shuffling back and forth from knee to knee, his hands banging against the wood as he struggles against the stocks, chafing the skin of his wrists and neck. Hannibal remembers the marks they left, and feels his own skin breaking. His own bladder becomes heavy with the weight of the water he swallowed thirty years ago.  

The cup again, and now the man forces young Hannibal’s mouth open and pours the water in until all he can do is swallow until the cup is empty. Tears run down his face, but he doesn’t break. He closes his eyes and earns another slap; his face is going to bruise, and he’s going to miss class tomorrow, but for now, the pain is all he has to hold on to. 

“Ouvres,” says the voice from the dark, and the younger Hannibal clamps his mouth shut, but there’s no slap now. The woman behind him leans over him and hooks her pointer fingers in the corner of his mouth, prying it open. Hannibal can’t help but open his mouth, too, and he shouldn’t be finding this so arousing, but he is. 

The first stream of piss from the dark hits young Hannibal on the cheek. The second is better aimed, hitting him in the forehead just above his right eyebrow. It drips down into his eyelashes, keeps running to join the piss already on his face. But it’s the third that is the worst, because the third hits his belly and runs down onto his cock. 

The man shakes his dick clean in Hannibal’s face. “Nettoies,” he says, and holds it expectantly in front of Hannibal’s mouth. 

Hannibal watches himself accept it, close his mouth, and lick it clean. He stares as the woman takes her now free hands and wraps them around his belly. She squeezes, and his younger self moans as the cock in his mouth slips free. 

It’s just a trickle that runs down young Hannibal’s leg at the start. He’s still trying to hold on, but it won’t last. Before long, there’s a steady stream, too much to stay on his leg. It puddles on the floor in front of the stocks. Hannibal feels the same relief as the younger of them, followed by the same horror at what’s happened. Young Hannibal droops in the stocks, lets his head fall down like his neck is made of warm putty, gives in to the urge, and lets go of every drop of water still in his bladder. 

Hannibal’s own head snaps back as the woman moves at inhuman speed to stand behind him, instead, twisting her hand in his hair and yanking. 

“See?” Alana asks. 

Hannibal’s lip snarls slightly. He wrenches his head to the side as far as he can, and spits on her shoes. 

There’s no need to explore the palace further. Hannibal has everything he needs, and he knows exactly what he must do. 

 

***   
 

Hannibal stands slowly and goes to the dresser where Will has stashed his clothes. He pulls Will’s coiled belt from within; the leather is old and worn, flexible and smooth. It will be a crude substitute, but will serve Hannibal’s purposes until he can procure a proper belt for spanking. 

He goes outside, making sure to leave the door to the room cracked in case Will emerges from the bathroom before Hannibal comes back inside. He opens the trunk and lifts the carpeted bottom to pull their tool box from the wheel well where a spare tire was once stored. Hannibal procures Will’s knife, a roll of duct tape, a screwdriver, and the screw post studs he had purchased for Will for use on one of his kills several months ago. 

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth twitches up as he remembers the Polaroids Will had taken of his first living chair, before and after setting it alight. Will had been so secretive of his design, sketching it out with his arm protectively around his paper like a schoolboy afraid of cheating classmates. Hannibal had asked what style of furniture Will’s creation had belonged to. 

Will had replied, “Why, the Chilton era, of course,” beaming cheekily. 

“A pity it has been lost to time,” Hannibal had said. 

As he walks back inside, he makes a note to add the chair to the forest for Will to discover when next he visits his own palace. Hannibal would never stoop to adding a touch of Gein to his personal rooms, let alone his external surroundings. 

Cutting the leather will dull the blade, but the knife can be sharpened. But he does not wish to craft his tools without an audience. 

So Hannibal sits again, and he waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> -maître: sir/master  
> -ouvres: open  
> -nettoies: clean
> 
> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -mention of non-consensual activity during Hannibal's childhood  
> -mention of non-consensual activity during Hannibal's incarceration


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I titled the document for this chapter "Kink: The Enkinkening, Part I" which really should tell you everything you need to know, both about this chapter and the next. You're welcome.

Will emerges from the bathroom a handful of minutes later, which has given Hannibal enough time to devise a manner of attack. It would be easy enough to simply begin, as Will likely expects, but that is hardly Hannibal’s style. He’s studied _The Art of War_ and the _Thirty-Six Strategems_ often enough to know that any war is won first within the mind. Anticipation of the unknown is the greatest torture of all.

If he is to succeed in this, then Hannibal must lure Will in before catching him off-guard. It’s worked before, after all.

Will sets the toiletry bag back on the counter beside the sink. He has dressed as dictated--and Hannibal reminds himself to make Will dress in front of him next time--but Will hesitates as he approaches the wall.

“Daddy?” he asks, and oh, Hannibal is never going to tire of hearing that.

“Yes, Will?”

“I wasn’t sure if…” Will fidgets with the hem of his boxer briefs. “Did you want me to stand in the actual corner, or a metaphorical one?”

Hannibal smiles. “I suppose I wasn’t quite clear, was I?”

And his Will seems so bashful, so small. Hannibal is reminded of the boy he found in the Hobbs’ kitchen, quivering, covered in blood. He loves both Wills, of course, but he has always preferred this one to ruin, to spoil. Will can’t quite meet Hannibal’s eyes, though he makes a valiant effort. He gently shakes his head back and forth.

“I couldn’t hear your sweet voice, my boy.”

“No, Daddy,” says Will, “you weren’t.”

Hannibal gets out of his chair and moves to pull one out for Will. “I’d like you to sit over here with me first.”

Will moves fluidly, albeit timidly. “Ačiū, tėvelis.”

“You are nervous,” Hannibal states, walking across the room for a fresh towel.

“Of course I am,” says Will, laughing slightly. “I’ve given you carte blanche to destroy me.”

“I will understand if you wish to change your mind.”

“Perhaps, but I won’t.”

Hannibal is beyond disappointed with the towel selection, though he isn’t sure what he expected to find in the rack beyond sandpaper. These aren’t good enough for Will. His bath linens were wasted on Bedelia--she was accustomed to fine things, and thus, could not appreciate them fully. Hannibal is overcome with the desire to bathe Will properly, not for the first time. He’s washed him before, but never when Will was capable of enjoying it.

“I would like to dry your hair Will,” Hannibal says, still contemplating the towel. “It is still very damp.”

“You didn’t say to dry off,” explains Will, and Hannibal’s heart swells with affection.

“So I didn’t.” He had thought to stand behind Will to dry his hair, but now he beckons Will over to him without looking. Hannibal wonders if he could simply whistle and point beside him, if Will would obey like one of his own pack. “Remove your clothes.”

Will worries his lip, then strips off his shirt in one smooth motion. His brown curls remain damply plastered to his face, undisturbed by the action. He hooks his thumbs beneath the waistband of his underwear and slides them back and forth, once, not a teasing gesture, merely absentminded. His subconscious apparently satisfied, Will peels them down his legs; they flip inside out on the way down.

Hannibal takes in Will in his entirety for the first time, attempting nonchalant glances as Will undresses. Will’s skin is pink and blotched where he’s rubbed himself down with the scratchy washcloths over and over. Hannibal categorizes the scars and blemishes--he has seen them before, but his fingers ache with the need to memorize them by touch. It isn’t the first time he has denied himself personal gratification in the service of the greater good, however.

“Atleiskite, tėvelis.”

He masks a smile. Hannibal does that frequently these days. “I am delighted to know that you are practicing,” he says, making his final selection of the least terrible of the towels, “but your apology is unnecessary. You followed my word to the letter.” Hannibal brings the towel behind Will’s head and begins to carefully dry his hair. “You please me, mano širdis.”

Will _hmm_ s, and Hannibal isn’t sure if it’s from the praise or the attention. Perhaps both. Probably both. Regardless, Will’s eyes are closed and his head his tilted back slightly into Hannibal’s hands. He’s almost feline like this.

“So responsive,” Hannibal murmurs. “So receptive to spoiling.”

He grins, but doesn’t open his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been spoiled.”

“Then I shall fix that.” Will’s hair has fluffed up as Hannibal dries it; he looks younger than he should, but Hannibal knows that is as much the power of self-suggestion and role play as it is the hair itself. “I should like to bathe you some day. Very soon, I think.”

Will’s eyes open now, and he peers at Hannibal through his eyelashes. “That sounds more like a job for me.”

“Bathing yourself?”

“No,” explains Will, licking his lips as he lifts his head to allow Hannibal to run the towel over his neck and shoulders. “As the submissive partner in this...endeavor. It seems like I should be serving you.”

Hannibal pauses, then wraps the towel around Will’s back, pulling him into his chest. He brings one hand to Will’s hair and uses it to tilt his head; he kisses the corner of his jaw, just below his ear. “You are,” he says, “right now, by allowing me this.”

“How?”

“Am I not still doing with your body as I wish?”

Will shivers in his arms. “I...I suppose you are.”

“And I don’t know of many little boys who bathe their daddies. Do you?”

“No,” he whispers. “Ne, tėvelis.”

Hannibal releases Will’s hair and continues drying him in relative silence. He’s efficient now, passing the towel over his skin, patting more than rubbing. Hannibal can feel himself hardening in his lounge pants; he has always enjoyed serving in this manner. To have control over the enjoyment of others is extremely gratifying. What they eat, what they think, how they feel--it is endlessly exciting.

Above him, as he dries Will’s feet, he hears, “I like this.”

“What is it that you like, darling boy?”

“You,” says Will, “taking care of me. It reminds me of...before.”

He pauses. “Before what?”

“Before you sent me away.”

Hannibal wraps Will’s foot in the towel, trusting in his balance, kisses his way up his calf and to his knee. It aggravates his side, but Hannibal doesn’t care; he _needs_ to press his lips behind Will’s knee. Hannibal wants to worship Will’s body for the rest of his life. The slight pain of leaning around Will’s leg as Hannibal kneels before him is inconsequential.

“I did it for us,” he speaks against Will’s skin.

“I know that now. Still. It was a painful experience.”

His blood suddenly runs cold. Hannibal pulls back to look up at Will. “Did they hurt you?”

“No more than I expected,” says Will, shrugging. “The worse of it was Frederick administering sodium amytal. And the cuffs and chains chafed my wrists. I didn’t mind the other restraints as much as I thought I would, though,” and he looks down at Hannibal slyly.

“Is that so?” Hannibal leaves the towel, choosing instead to run his hands up Will’s bare skin as he stands. He suppresses the relief he feels at knowing his own experience in the BSHCI is not one shared between them. Instead, he kisses Will’s wrists, as if he could make them better, reach through time to heal the discomfort of the past. But Hannibal never takes his eyes from Will’s own; eye contact freely given is too precious. “You enjoyed the straightjacket?” he asks before sucking at the pulse point on each wrist. “The padded cuffs?”

Will nods, curls bobbing as he does, and suddenly Hannibal’s shy, curious boy is back.

“I will have to keep that under consideration,” Hannibal says, moving now to trace his fingers over Will’s clavicle. “Though I do prefer you to exercise self-restraint, as opposed to relying on external measures. But if my boy desires it…?” He brings his hands to frame Will’s face, rubs his thumbs gently up and down his jaw.

“I think…” Will swallows as his voice cracks. “I think I might.”

His mouth curves upward with sinister glee. Removing his hands from Will’s jaw, Hannibal grabs for his wrists again instead. He pulls Will’s arms up one at a time, folding them across his torso before pushing Will back and against the wall, pressing into him with the full force of his weight. Releasing one wrist, he snatches another towel from the shelf and uses both hands to wrap the towel around Will, grabbing the ends behind him and twisting them together in one fist.

The effect is immediate. Will doesn’t make a sound, but his eyes are glazed. He’s relaxed, docile, soft and sweet.

“I think you might, as well,” says Hannibal, and he nips at Will’s ear to hear him sigh. “A pity we have no mask for you, mano mažai žvėris.” Hannibal knows Will does not understand the endearment, but a wild thing such as he will be satisfied by intent alone.

Will shifts, and Hannibal can feel the hard outline of his cock rub against his own. But Will is good, simply moans a little bit, not rutting against him as the strain on his face says he longs to.

Hannibal steps back and lets the towel slacken around Will’s torso. “Labas berniukas,” he tells him, and Will flushes. “You like that? The praise?”

Will still can’t meet his eyes, glancing over into the mirror over the counter to watch them together instead. “You know I do. From Chad’s.”

“I did notice, yes.” Hannibal pets the sides of Will’s neck, and Will raises his head to lengthen it, encouraging the touch. “More so when you are restrained, I believe.” Will’s eyelashes flutter, but he says nothing. “Why is that, Will?”

He bites his bottom lip again, tilting his head from side to side, like he can’t decide which part he wants Hannibal to stroke first. “It’s...easier. Easier to accept.”

“Because you have no control over it?” Will nods, reverting to the nonverbal responses Hannibal finds so endearing. “What is it about giving up control that you like so much?”

“I’m not...I don’t know.”

Hannibal removes his fingers, and Will’s chase for his touch is entertaining. “I think you do,” he says. More quietly, Hannibal reminds him, “You have nothing to be embarrassed of, mano širdis. Not with me. Especially not with concerns of your pleasure.”

Will breathes deeply and sighs as he exhales. “It’s the only area of my life where I enjoy spontaneity. One thing I don’t have to plan. I can just let go. Relax. It’s why…” He pauses, and there’s a tremor to his voice now. “It’s why I forgave you when you survived Matthew’s crucifixion.”

“Turn around for me?” Will does, and Hannibal kneads his knuckles into his neck, rolls his fists back and forth. As he expected, Will’s nothing but knots. “Which of my sins was it that you forgave, exactly?”

“The conditioning. The--” He groans as Hannibal presses his thumbs into the base of his neck. “God, that’s good.”

“Keep going, please.”

“The manipulation,” continues Will, and his voice evens out with every pass of Hannibal’s hands. “Playing with my mind in every sense of the word. Once I got back home, there were nights I…Jesus, Hannibal, I’m so fucked up.”

Hannibal kisses the back of his neck. “What did you do, Will?”

“I got off to it,” Will admits. “I jerked off thinking of you doing what you thought was in my best interest, though I still questioned your motives. And I felt guilty,” he continues, picking up speed as he confesses, “I felt guilty, but I wanted to go with you--I _did,_ I didn’t want to betray you but I needed to forgive _myself_ and I _had to,_ I _swear, oh God--”_

Hannibal bites into the junction of Will’s neck and shoulder to contain his own anguish. This isn’t the time; it may never be the time. “I understand, Will,” he chokes out before soothing the broken skin with his tongue. “It can be difficult to reconcile the physical with the metaphysical, our multiple realities.”

“How can you love me, Daddy?”

The pain in Will’s voice is too great, and Hannibal flips him back around to hold his face between his hands, to force Will’s eyes to his own. “The same way you love me, dear boy. Because we see each other in ways no one else can or ever will. You are mine, as I am yours, and neither time nor grievance can sunder that.”

He returns to running his hands up and down Will’s arms to soothe him, spends long minutes doing nothing more than caressing his hips when Will’s shoulders stop shaking. Hannibal trails his nails up and over the swell of his stomach, his ribs, his pectorals, down and back again, over and over. While he avoids Will’s sensitive nipples entirely, the scent of his renewing arousal is unmistakable.

“I made a promise to myself,” Hannibal continues, soft as he would speak to a skittish, wary beast. “I promised that I would take care of you, and I intend to. Tell me, Will, what do I do with my promises?”

“You always keep them.”

“So I do.” Hannibal lightly scratches up Will’s neck and under his chin. “You’ve been such a good boy for me. It was very difficult for you, this conversation.”

Will’s voice is steady and calm again. “Yeah.”

“Can you give the reins back to me? Let me lead you?”

“Kiss me first?” The spark is back to Will’s eyes, and Hannibal is glad for it, thankful that his touch is as much a balm now as it will be a spur later.

“Ask Daddy nicely,” he reminds him.

Will’s smile is brilliant. “Prašau, tėvelis.”

Hannibal traces his thumb over Will’s lips, feels the warmth of his breath. “Now how could I possibly refuse?” Hannibal lowers his thumb to the divot beneath Will’s bottom lip before leaning in to kiss him, little pecks here and there to make Will laugh boyishly.

“Do it right, Daddy,” he coyly requests.

“Of course, baby boy,” and Hannibal grips Will’s curls suddenly, forces their mouths together. It’s so fast that Will’s mouth is still completely open, caught between a gasp and a groan, but Hannibal doesn’t care. Contact is contact, and this only gives him more impetus to bite at his lips, hoping to bruise. Let the world know that Will’s mouth belongs to him.

But there will be more time to kiss later, so Hannibal pulls back at last and lets Will catch his breath. “You should redress in a fresh shirt and underwear,” he instructs, seeing as Will’s previous undergarments are still damp from going immediately onto his still-wet body. Will needs to appreciate how dry and clean he is now before he isn’t.

While Will dresses, Hannibal rummages through their dry goods. He despises instant anything, but there has been neither time nor energy to create the foods he is used to. There will be time once they are safely out of the country. For now, Quaker Oats and Nescafe and a microwave will have to suffice. At least he has his own spices, dried fruits, and nuts to garnish; there’s no reason to live like animals, regardless of circumstances.

When he notices that Will has not come back to the table, Hannibal beckons him over. Will looks so comfortable and at ease now, just as Hannibal wants him. Unsuspecting. Trusting. Compliant.

Will was right; this is very much how they were before the world turned upside down.

“Are we having lunch?” Will asks.

“I thought it best for you to have something light,” explains Hannibal as he heats water in the microwave. “You will need your strength.”

Will laughs. “I had almost forgotten,” he says. “Preparing the lamb for slaughter, are we?”

“Clever boy.”

“I know you much better than you think I do, Hannibal,” Will tells him fondly.

Hannibal only replies, “Sit on the bed, please,” and Will does, settles in to watch Hannibal finish fixing the instant oatmeal and equally-instant coffee. Will never assists much in the kitchen unless asked to do something. It’s the voyeur in Will that drives him to play audience to Hannibal’s theatrics, and Hannibal enjoys having an audience.

They know their roles and play their parts in every area of their lives, just as they always have.

When Hannibal deems the light late brunch sufficient, he takes it and joins Will on the bed, setting the bowl and mug on the bedside table. Hannibal fluffs the pillows and leans up against them and the headboard, before spreading his legs and inviting Will to sit between them. Will’s back meets Hannibal’s chest, and he reaches for the bowl, only to have his hand swatted away.

“I would very much enjoy feeding you,” Hannibal says.

Will goes still. “Is this a question?”

“No,” Hannibal confirms, “it is not.” He wraps his arms around Will, pets at his forearm with one hand and strokes his hair with the other, listening to Will’s shaky breaths. “What troubles you, mažai žmogus?”

“The last time you fed me,” says Will, shrugging off Hannibal’s hand to instead rest his head back on his shoulder, eyes fixed on the ceiling, “you were seasoning me for dinner.”

Hannibal sighs and uses his now free hand to tilt Will’s head. He has bestowed his precious boy with numerous kisses already this afternoon, but he presses yet another to the thin white scar left by the bone saw on Will’s forehead. “I do not like to think of it,” he says.

Will huffs incredulously. “But you don’t regret it.”

“No,” admits Hannibal, “for it is one of many events that led us here and to this. But I still prefer not to dwell on it.”

“Why?”

Hannibal holds Will even more tightly. “Because of what I almost lost.”

Will glances over at Hannibal now, searching for honesty in his eyes, and Hannibal knows he will find it there. He hasn’t told Will of his nightmares which returned in the BSHCI, but one of them concerns their near-dinner in Florence.

Hannibal turns away--Will’s eyes are too wet again, too scared--and retrieves the bowl of oatmeal. Never removing his arm from around Will, Hannibal takes the spoon and dips out a perfect bite of an imperfect meal. He nudges Will’s head with his shoulder, prompting him to raise it, before offering the oats and cinnamon and cranberries and slivered almonds.

“Ouvres,” he says, and his breath catches when Will does, letting himself be fed. “How is it?”

Will swallows. “It’s good,” he admits. “Like a...sort of a Thanksgiving breakfast.”

“Another bite?”

“I…” But Hannibal has procured another spoonful, anyway. “Okay.” Hannibal coos encouragingly in his ear, mumbles nonsensical praise, and Will gradually begins to relax. They’re about a third of the way through the bowl when he asks, “Can I have some coffee?”

“Of course,” says Hannibal, “but I’m afraid you will have to drink that yourself.”

“I think I can manage,” Will says, taking the cup and gulping half of it down in one go. He’s so nervous, but Hannibal knows he should be. Hannibal has planned this very carefully, down to the diuretic Will obliviously drinks.

“If you would like,” says Hannibal, intently watching Will drain the mug, “I can make you another.”

“That would be good.” Will scoots forward to let Hannibal get up. “Can I feed myself while you’re gone?”

Hannibal looks down at his cheeky boy. “Certainly not.” Just to be sure, he takes the bowl with him.

Will is quiet as Hannibal mixes another mug of Nescafe with hot water. Hannibal would prefer to use milk; to be completely honest, he would prefer to have his precision coffee grinder and French press and lovely insulated glass cups, but those now unfamiliar luxuries will have to wait. He leans over once he judges the coffee finished, Will rising to meet him.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Hannibal says, filling a glass with cool water, unfortunately from the tap. Will drinks the second mug just as fast, nearly finished once Hannibal settles back in behind him. “Careful not to burn yourself in your haste.”

Will shifts guiltily. “The burn is grounding.”

“Then if you are finished,” Hannibal says, making the decision for him and taking the mug away, “we shall continue breakfast.”

“Atleiskite,” he says again.

“None of that,” admonishes Hannibal. “You are being very brave for me.” Will whines a bit at the praise, and when Hannibal offers another bite of the oatmeal, he doesn’t hesitate. Bite after bite, Will obediently opens his mouth, relaxing by degrees. By the time Hannibal scrapes the bowl for the last spoonful, Will has practically melted into him, eyelids drooping. Hannibal couldn’t be more pleased by this unexpected development. “Such a good boy,” he tells Will as he puts the empty bowl on the table.

Will groans, turning his head to nuzzle at Hannibal’s neck. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for taking care of me,” and Hannibal could die here, now, kill both of them to preserve this perfect moment. But there are so many moments to come, so he commits it to the gallery in his palace, instead.

Hannibal only hums his acknowledgment, moving to rub a hand in light circles on Will’s belly. He will likely think that Hannibal is being sweet, doting on him, and to some extent, that’s true. But Hannibal also takes the opportunity to press and massage all the right areas that will stimulate his bladder. The time for pleasantries is nearing its inevitable end.

“Feels good,” Will says, sounding somewhat drunk. “Enjoyed that more than I thought I would.”

Hannibal palms Will’s renewed erection, listens to him gasp, lets Will press up into his hand once before returning to rubbing his stomach. “I should say you did.” He waits a few more moments before asking, “Are you thirsty?”

“My mouth’s…” Will pants, wriggling his hips thoughtlessly. “Mouth’s kind of dry.” Will complains briefly when Hannibal removes his hand to fetch the glass of water, nothing more than an irritated noise.

“Ouvres,” repeats Hannibal, and holds the rim of the glass to Will’s lips, and he drinks greedily, having reached the plateau where he doesn’t quite think, only feels.

Will swallows, and says, “That’s French.”

“Oui,” Hannibal says, chuckling slightly.

“Why?”

“Merely channeling a memory for good luck.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

Hannibal chooses not to divulge that information. “Go brush your teeth,” he tells him, instead. “Leave the tap on while you do, but only slightly.”

Will cranes his head around and regards him quizzically. “Okay,” he finally says, and then, “I mean, yes, Daddy.”

“We can work on your manners another time,” says Hannibal, patting Will on the ass as he walks off, relishing the childish giggle it provokes. Hannibal takes the dishes to the sink, but refills the glass, setting it on the table. He sits back down himself, and begins to take the knife to the belt.

Will returns quickly, and manages to say, “Where do you wa--” before finally noticing the tools on Hannibal’s side of the table. His eyes grow wide. “Oh,” he says breathily.

“If you would be so kind as to remove the wand from the blinds for me.” Hannibal gestures toward the window beside him, then return to cutting the buckle from Will’s belt.

But Will is frozen where he stands. Hannibal can smell the rush of endorphins, his fear, but curled beneath it remains a note of excitement.

“Dabar,” he orders, snapping his fingers and pointing again at the blind.

He looks at Will from the corner of his eye, sees the effect his sudden change of mood and tone has had on him. Will wavers on his feet; his mouth hangs slightly open; his boxer briefs tent from his arousal. Hannibal tracks him as he walks to the blinds, rising on tiptoe to unscrew the wand from the headrail. Once he’s finally freed it from its setting, Will just stands there with his back to Hannibal, holding it, weighing it in his palms.

“Will.”

And Will turns, his face pale but his cheeks a bright pink, and hands the wand to Hannibal.

“Thank you. Bend down.” Will does, bends until they look each other face to face. “Open your mouth,” and Hannibal has returned to his previous honeyed tone, keeping Will off balance. Will opens his mouth, and Hannibal lays the wand horizontally between his teeth. “Hold that for me,” he orders, then shoos Will back to standing while he continues working.

Hannibal cuts off the tip of the belt, leaving about an inch and a half of the belt attached. He folds the now straight end with the holes over onto the rest of the belt until he has the length he desires. Using the belt holes as a pattern, Hannibal inserts the point of the blade through each until he has a rough approximation of holes on the other end of the belt. He takes the screw post studs and fastens the holes together. Finished, he appraises his work, then turns to show it to Will.

“What do you think?” Hannibal asks, gripping the studded handle he’s created. “A crude tool, to be sure, but--” Hannibal turns his wrist and cracks it against the outside of Will’s thigh.

Will cries out, and the plastic wand falls to the floor.

Hannibal _tuts._ “I am quite certain I asked you to hold that, mano berniukas.” It takes much of his focus to steel his gaze when faced with Will’s bewildered and frankly amusing stare. “This is, at last, an appropriate time for you to apologize.” When Will says nothing, too stunned to speak, Hannibal flips the belt and lands a backhanded stroke on the other thigh. “Dabar, Will.”

“Atleiskite,” Will manages.

“Now pick the wand back up.” As expected Will crouches down and reaches out with his hand. “No,” Hannibal says, “hands behind your back. It was to stay in your mouth, thus it’s only fair that you should use your mouth to pick it back up.”

Will’s lets out a helpless, punched out moan, which is very encouraging indeed, and listening to him lower himself to his knees too quickly so as to chase the wand on the floor, hearing it clatter occasionally against his teeth and the following frustrated grunts, is the perfect background music for Hannibal’s work. He takes the knife again and wittles the narrow tip of the belt down further until it is the approximate width of the plastic wand, and as long as the duct tape is wide. Hannibal looks down when he’s finished to watch Will’s progress.

There’s a line of drool stretching from Will’s starting point to where he’s cornered the wand against the leg of the table. Hannibal knows that there should be two, but assumes that the other is being wiped up by Will’s cheek as he slides his face along the floor, now denied the use of his hands. His ass is presented beautifully, and while Hannibal has not unsubtly watched it in motion before, he never saw it so close, nor with such thin material covering it.

Hannibal can’t help himself. He picks the belt back up from the table, and brings it down against one asscheek.

Will skids forward so hard that the skin of his cheek squeaks against the floor. He’s breathing hard, and Hannibal watches his shoulders heaving, the blades more pronounced due to his awkward position.

“It’s alright, baby boy,” Hannibal says, rubbing the sore spot where he’s struck Will. “You made an excellent effort.”

Hannibal thinks Will tries to say thank you, but it’s lost to both his exhalation and the floor. He reaches down and picks up the wand himself, then asks, “You can use your hands now. Push up to your knees.”

Will already looks completely debauched, and they’ve barely even started. Sure enough, the skin on the right side of his face is red, burned from its journey across the small patch of carpet. Hannibal takes the opportunity to steal a kiss from his sweet boy’s plush mouth, pleased that Will leaves his arms dangling by his side rather than touch without permission. But Hannibal needs none, and he takes and takes and takes, licking the inside of Will’s warm mouth, stroking his tongue with his own, running his nails over Will’s scalp until he has pleasured sounds to swallow.

He breaks the kiss, running the knuckles of his left hand over Will’s abused face, watches him struggle with the urge to both lean in and away simultaneously. Hannibal sits back up and reaches for the glass of water; he places two fingers under Will’s chin, encouraging him to tilt his head back, but only a touch. Once again, Hannibal holds the glass to Will’s mouth and helps him drink.

“You’re beautiful, Will,” he tells him, not only because he is, but because it will distract him, encourage him to drink longer. “I’ve dreamt of you like this so many times.” Hannibal watches Will’s eyes fall closed again as he sinks into Hannibal’s words. He tips the last of the water into Will’s mouth, watches his throat work, follows the single undulatory pass, pictures it sliding down his esophagus. “Gražūs,” and he runs a finger down Will’s throat, leaving goosebumps to prickle and emerge in its wake.

“Ačiū, tėvelis.”

“I’d like you in the corner now, I think,” says Hannibal. “The actual one, not metaphorically.”

“Hmm?” Will opens his eyes again slowly, blue eyes overwhelmed by dilated pupils.

“You asked which corner I wanted you to stand in when you came from the shower.”

“Oh.” Will takes Hannibal’s hands in his as Hannibal stands, then helps Will up from the floor. He blinks suddenly and averts his eyes to his feet. “I need...um. I need to use the restroom.”

“Yes,” says Hannibal, leading him into the corner. He had considered putting him in nose first, but Hannibal wants Will to watch him finish his makeshift crop, and take his tea, and read his journals, and generally ignore him save for bringing him a drink on occasion. Hannibal puts his hands on Will’s hips and pushes him as far into the corner as possible; he brings each of Will’s palms to his mouth, places a kiss there before pressing each to their respective wall.

“Hannibal?” Will’s voice pitches at the end.

“Stay.”

“Hannibal, I...I have to take a leak.”

“You sound so desperate already, Will,” Hannibal says as he walks back to the kitchen to make himself some tea, turning on the kitchen tap to a slow drip. “Imagine how sweetly you’ll beg an hour from now.”

Will’s whimper is delicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> -ačiū: thank you  
> -atleiskite: forgive me  
> -mano širdis: my heart  
> -ne: no  
> -mano mažai žvėris: my little beast  
> -labas berniukas: good boy  
> -prašau: please  
> -mažai žmogus: little one  
> -ouvres: open  
> -dabar: now  
> -mano berniukas: my boy  
> -gražūs: beautiful
> 
> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -mention of non-consensual activity during Hannibal's incarceration


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, "Kink: The Enkinkening, Part II". To make up for your wait, have 7500 words of unrepentant filth.
> 
> Many, many, _many_ thanks to [cosmolights](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmolights/pseuds/cosmolights/works), who is in the process of correcting my Lithuanian. I'll be editing words as they are able to help me. <3

The implements Hannibal constructs at the motel room’s dingy table are along the lines of what Will expected Hannibal to use when he said Will was to be punished. His love is nothing if not a sadist, and Will, much to his surprise, enjoys being on the other end of Hannibal’s violent affection. For instance, once Hannibal had somewhat recovered--or, to be more accurate, once he had stopped waiting on Death’s doorstep like an eager teenager picking up his date for homecoming--he’d hissed and tutted and generally berated Will’s stitching of his own wounds.

“You aren’t complaining about my work on you,” Will complained.

“Because I am honored to bear your marks on my body,” explained Hannibal.

“Then what’s wrong with the sutures I gave myself?”

Hannibal shrugged and said, “They aren’t mine.”

Will’s wounds were already healed, and so he thought that would be the end of the conversation. When Hannibal woke him up one night making shallow cuts to reopen every scar and blemish on Will’s body that he hadn’t left personally, he was less surprised by Hannibal’s actions and more by his own naivety at thinking they weren't inevitable. Will pushed up into Hannibal’s scalpel, and Hannibal’s white teeth cut through the gloom until he reached for the bedside lamp.

And then Hannibal proceeded to demonstrate to Will how he should suture himself in the future. Will was too unbearably aroused to pay much attention, which Hannibal was probably counting on. It would give him an excuse to open Will up again for another lesson.

Will can’t decide what _this_ particular lesson is, though. If Hannibal only wanted him to beg, then he could have simply beaten Will into pleading at his feet. The image that conjures up--of Will, bloodied and bruised and still begging for more--makes him bite his lip. He’s determined to stay quiet, but then his cock twitches in his underwear, and it reminds him of his predicament, and Will moans anyway.

“You’ve only been there a little over eight minutes,” Hannibal says from across the room. He doesn’t look up from his work. “What lovely scenario has your mind created for you already, mažai žvėris?”

“I was remembering the night in the shack when you sliced me open in my sleep.”

Hannibal nods. “And then you imagined further?”

“I was--” Will’s eyes slide closed. “I was thinking of the _Pietà_. Lying in your arms, recovering from your torment, accepting relief I do not want.”

“You would like that?”

“In theory, it sounds...exquisite. I don’t think I would enjoy it, not until after.”

“And what, precisely, would I do to you?”

Will licks his lips. They’re dry, as is his mouth. “I want us to fight, and I want to lose, for the scales to have been tipped in your favor beforehand, as they always seem to be. I want you to break me, and then put me back together; to hurt me, and then comfort me; to see you breathtakingly merciless, and then unspeakably merciful.”

“I could keep you that way.” Hannibal sounds nonchalant, as if he’s discussing the weather and not negotiating consensual systematic torture. “Fasten you with…” Will hears Hannibal set his work down, listens as the chair creaks with the shifting of his weight. “Tell me: are you familiar with the protective mitts used in the medical field?”

Will can’t decide if the heat in his gut is from unease or arousal. Likely both. “Hum a few bars and I’ll fake it.”

“Cheeky boy,” says Hannibal, laughing quietly. “I’m starting to think that you invite discipline.”

He tries to be good, tries not to squirm, but Will fails. It reminds him of his full bladder, of his discomfort. His erection doesn't flag, though Will tells himself he isn’t enjoying it. “Maybe...maybe a little.”

The chair squeaks again, and the cuffs of Hannibal’s pajama pants drag against the carpet, bare feet making nary a sound. Will opens his eyes to look up at him. “Safety mitts are put on those patients that tear out their intravenous lines or are otherwise prone to injuring themselves. It’s akin to the mittens small children wear in the winter.”

Will smiles in spite of himself. “Do they have an idiot string, too?”

Hannibal smacks him lightly on the cheek, not even enough to sting, and continues as if Will hadn’t spoken. “They contain the entire hand, including the thumb, and fasten around the wrist. The strap is typically a simple hook and loop closure, but I prefer the buckled variety.” He smiles sharply and adds, “As would you, I think.”

“Would I?”

“The mitt is padded on both the top and bottom. Quite deceptive, to have your fingers immobilized so softly. But you mentioned being at a disadvantage. How frustrating it would be, to flail at me, land blow after blow and have them do nothing.”

 _“Fuck,”_ and Hannibal slaps the other cheek, harder this time, and Will’s curse dissolves into a hiss.

“Mažai žmogus,” says Hannibal, still unnervingly calm, “what a dirty mouth you have.” His expression is curious, calculating. “What is it about this fantasy, about letting me beat you, best you, that you like so much?”

“I know you’ll take care of me after,” Will admits, softly. “Like you did after Randall; like you did after Chiyoh.” He ducks his head to the side and adds, “I thought you would kiss me then.”

“Before you took your revenge?”

“Yes.”

Hannibal sighs, but looks at him tenderly, and this is the face Will can’t get enough of, would let Hannibal do anything to him just to see it. He can’t help the whimper that escapes him. “My violent, bloody, brilliant little boy,” Hannibal says, hands on Will’s shoulders, thumbs stroking the sides of his neck. “Berniuk,” he whispers. “Širdie.”

He presses Will further into the corner; it stretches his arms, still planted on the wall on either side of him. Hannibal pushes himself against him, and Will is reminded of his bladder again, of his need. “Daddy,” he whines, and it’s so simple to fall into the role that it should scare him, bother him, embarrass him. But Will knows he can’t hide from Hannibal any longer, no matter how hard he might try.

“What do you need, darling?” Hannibal’s breath his hot on Will’s ear.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

Hannibal chuckles darkly, and it makes Will shiver. “Your voice sounds quite rough. Are you thirsty?”

Will wants to tell the truth, but wants to lie even more, just to see what happens. “Ne, tėvelis.”

“You do me a great disservice, assuming I cannot tell when you lie unplanned.” The back of Will’s head thumps against the wall from the force of Hannibal’s hand around his neck. Will wants him to squeeze, to leave a mark. “Careful that you do not test the depth of the water, boy.”

“I--I’m thirsty,” Will says. “But I don’t want a drink.”

“That isn’t your decision.” Hannibal pulls Will’s head forward by his neck, then lets go suddenly, backing up to the table and grabbing a glass. There’s a straw in it, and Will has no idea where it’s come from. He forces it between Will’s lips, but Will doesn’t take a sip. “Such punishment you invite,” says Hannibal levelly. “What awful things I will do to you, Will. You invite pain, and you shall have it in spades.”

Will gives in--he’s gotten what he wanted--and drinks.

“All of it,” Hannibal orders, and Will obeys. There is no praise when Will finishes the glass, so he pouts. If he’s going to be an unruly brat, he might as well go all the way. Hannibal refills the glass at the sink, and this time holds the glass away from Will. “Drink.”

Will has to lean out and chase the straw. He’s hard as steel, and it makes the urge to urinate worse. Finally, he succeeds; Will meets Hannibal’s eyes, and drains the glass.

“See?” says Hannibal, running a hand through Will’s hair. “It is not so hard to be good.”

“Atleiskite,” and Will means it, though he doesn’t particularly regret what he’s done. He’s starting to figure out what game Hannibal is playing with him. Will isn’t sure how far Hannibal intends to go, if he simply wants to make him desperate and force him to beg, or if…

Will can’t even think about it. There has to be a line somewhere.

“Ask me for another.”

“You’re going to drown me.”

Hannibal bares his teeth. “No. Not today, at least.”

That probably shouldn’t excite Will as much as it does. The limits of his fucked-upedness apparently know no bounds now that he’s set them free. To think that they’ve gone from celibacy to _this._

Will gulps; he makes his lip wobble, but it isn’t difficult--he already feels kind of wobbly. “Get me another?”

Two smacks this time, one on either cheek. “You keep forgetting how to address me, and you do not give the orders here.” Another slap, and _God_ that feels good, the warmth spreading across his skin. “Beg me for another.”

“A...a slap or a drink?”

“Both.”

He closes his eyes and pushes his face into Hannibal’s palm, nuzzling it with his nose. Every movement, every turn of his body makes him want to piss all the more. “Strike me,” Will says. “Prašau, tėvelis.” Hannibal does, pushes Will’s face into the opposite Wall, and backhands him. Will gasps; his hips twitch forward of their own accord, and he feels a damp patch on his boxers, but he doesn’t know what he’s leaking.

Hannibal winds an arm around Will’s waist and says, “Don’t move your feet.” He reaches up and across Will’s back, palms his shoulder blade, and pulls Will’s torso forward. With his other hand, Hannibal tangles his fingers in Will’s curls, and brings him into a kiss.

It’s soft, deceptively so, Hannibal kissing Will’s upper lip first, tender and warm. Will still kisses him back timidly, afraid that it’s a trap, a lure; that at any moment, Hannibal will decide to bite him and draw blood. The fear is delicious, and he can’t help the little sigh he breathes into Hannibal’s mouth.

Hannibal smiles against Will’s lips. “You enjoy this too much, mažai žmogus, flirting with the monster.”

“I do,” he tells Hannibal quietly. “I want every part of you.”

“Be careful what you ask for, baby boy.” He presses a flat hand against Will’s bladder.

“Please, Daddy.” Will doesn’t need pride, not where they’re going. “Please, I need to go. I need to go _now.”_

Hannibal cocks his head to one side, appraising him. “I do not believe your hour is up yet,” he reminds Will. “You may, however, plead for a glass of water.”

Will locks his knees together as Hannibal begins rubbing slow circles over his belly, maintaining pressure. Tears begin to well in the corners of Will’s eyes. He’s aroused, impossibly so, but the desire to piss is greater still. Will swallows. “May I please have a glass of water, Daddy?” Even the thought of drinking more makes him feel weak.

“Do you have room for another drink?” Will shakes his head, and he cries as Hannibal pushes in harder. “I think not.”

And Hannibal really is going to take the game there, Will realizes. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“You have no choice in the matter.” Hannibal removes his hand from Will’s gut, tracing lightly over his erection, instead. “It seems to me that you enjoy this. You like being trained to do as I wish, do you not?”

Will sobs, and he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot now without removing them from the floor. It makes his hips jut out farther, and Hannibal grips his erection tightly. The damp spot on his underwear grows, but Will refuses to let go.

Suddenly, Hannibal removes his hands, but he doesn’t step back. Will watches with growing horror as Hannibal reaches into his fly and pulls out his cock. “I’m going to mark you,” he says, and Will shakes his head side to side, and cries harder, and wants to stab his past self for refusing a safeword, but it’s too late now. He wishes he could still deny that he’s enjoying this, but it’s too late for that now, as well.

Hannibal’s eyes shut, and he aims, and relieves himself on Will’s groin. His piss is warm and wet and overpowering. Will can’t help himself; he looks down to watch, and he moans loudly through a hiccupping sob. Humiliation burns low in his gut, and fuck if he doesn’t love it, doesn’t love watching as his light gray boxer briefs grow dark and soaked, doesn’t love how they’re beginning to sag with damp weight. Hannibal changes his angle as he finishes to hit Will’s thigh; it trickles down his leg, and Will hangs his head to follow the wet trail it leaves behind.

Will’s cock is trapped in a soaking prison, and still he holds back. Hannibal curls a finger beneath Will’s chin and pulls his head up to look him in the eye. He makes no attempt to wipe away the tears or the tiny drop of snot that hangs below one nostril.

“Silly little boy,” he says. “You still refuse the urges of your body?” Will says nothing, just bites his lip and grunts when Hannibal returns to pushing against his stomach. “You had your chance. Now I will bring you your drink, and you are forbidden to go until the hour is up.”

The piss is growing cold against him now, and the cotton is clinging to Will’s skin uncomfortably. He feels disgusting and gross and tortured and terrible and _fantastic._ More importantly, Will feels _free._

“Do you require assistance to keep from touching yourself? From removing your underwear?” he asks Will from across the room, and Will nods furiously. Hannibal frowns. “Have you lost your manners?”

“Ne, tėvelis.” His voice cracks, and he watches Hannibal rummage through the dresser, finally pulling out a pair of socks. He grabs the duct tape from the table, and the glass of water he’s already poured, and walks back to Will.

“Drink,” Hannibal demands, and Will does, slowly. Every labored sip, Hannibal murmurs encouraging praise, though Will scarcely hears him. The water finished, Hannibal sets the glass down on the floor. “Give me your hands,” and he slips a sock over each, then pulls the roll of duct tape out from underneath his arm. “You seemed so affected by the idea of the mitts that I thought we might try a very crude version,” he explains.

The rip of the tape seems to echo in Will’s ears. He feels exhausted already, like he’s made of lead, letting Hannibal move him as he desires. A layer of tape is wrapped around each wrist over the fabric of the socks. Hannibal appraises his work, then wraps more tape over Will’s covered fingers. Will feels himself slump against the wall, strangely soothed.

“Sweet boy,” Hannibal says, and then, “This will hurt later, when we remove it,” which is all the warning Will gets before Hannibal tears off a strip of tape and affixes it over Will’s mouth. “Since you cannot use your words unprompted,” explains Hannibal, putting another strip above it, overlapping the top half of the first piece and jutting up against the bottom of Will’s nose, “then you shall not use them, at all.” Another piece over the bridge of his nose, and one overlapping the bottom half of the tape over his lips, and Will begins to cry again, terrified.

 _He’s going to kill me,_ he thinks. _He’s going to leave me dead in a puddle of my own pee._

But then Hannibal stops and pulls Will into his arms, rubbing his back with the palm of the hand not holding the roll of tape, shushing him. “Don’t be scared, širdie,” he says, leaving kisses on his temple, on the skin of his cheek left exposed by the tape. “I may punish you harshly, but I will never leave you broken and alone. Never again.” After a few minutes, after Will’s remembered he can breathe, he nods against Hannibal’s neck. “I’m going to continue now,” Hannibal tells him, “but I am cruel, not unkind. I will not force you without your permission, no matter how much you insisted before that I did not need it.”

It’s a mental, emotional struggle for Will to raise his head, to look Hannibal in the eye, but he does. There’s only love there. Will takes a deep breath through his nose, steels himself, and nods again.

“Labas berniuk,” and Hannibal kisses his forehead, and continues. A vertical strip at either side of Will’s mouth, overlapping the tape that’s already been applied to his face, and then Hannibal begins the process again.

Will’s eyes grow heavy--he’s so worn _out--_ and, now that he’s calmed down, it feels _good,_ being restrained like this. Will reminds himself that he trusts this man implicitly, and lets himself sink into the feeling of helplessness, to the deep place within his psyche where he’s nothing more than what Hannibal wants. That shouldn’t make him groan like it does; the base want inside him doubles as Will hears himself, hears how he sounds muffled beneath the tape. Beneath his mask, Will realizes, and his hands fly up to his face to feel the hard plastic that should be there, but his covered fingers pat uselessly at his face, and he’d groan harder if it wouldn’t be so futile.

 _“Oh,”_ says Hannibal, and he sounds awed. “Oh, my little boy _does_ like this. You may change my opinion on bondage yet.” Hannibal turns him to face the corner, and the movement sloshes Will’s bladder, and shifts his wet clothing, and he’s overwhelmed by the urge to piss all over again. But he’s been forbidden to go until Hannibal says he can, so Will tries not to think about it, tries to focus on Hannibal, instead.

Hannibal, who is pulling Will’s arms behind his back, laying them parallel to one another. Hannibal, who is wrapping them with tape, too, binding them together. Hannibal, who is speaking sweetly into Will’s ear, “Such interesting toys I shall have to buy you. Such unusual things to wear. Soft, beautiful, _dangerous_ things. I do love you wild and free, but there is much to be said for you docile and fettered, lovely boy.”

Will speaks his agreement into his gag, and hears hardly anything, at all. He’s set further into the corner, and Hannibal puts his hand between Will’s shoulder blades and urges him to bend forward, coaxes his chin to lift until Will’s nose is set firmly in the join of the walls.

“Stay.” Will misses the warmth at his back almost immediately as Hannibal retreats, and now there is nothing to focus on beyond his own predicament. He can barely flex his hands; his arms are immobile; the tape across his mouth is so well-affixed that Will can scarcely move his lips. The more Will considers it, the harder it becomes to keep still, to refrain from humping against the air.

The third glass of water eventually creeps up on him, and now every ounce of awareness is zeroed in on his bladder. Will has no idea how long he has left to wait, but the pressure is building up slowly again, becoming increasingly more urgent. Honestly, he isn’t even sure he _can_ piss with an erection, but apparently Will’s going to find out. He’d been too distracted earlier to notice if Hannibal had been hard when he drenched Will.

And now Will wonders if Hannibal intends to make him soak his underwear further, or if he’ll walk Will into the bathroom, every step provoking another dribble to leak out of his cock. Would Hannibal jerk down Will’s boxers and help him aim into the toilet? Would he watch Will try to aim on his own without his hands, helpless to stop the mess he inevitably made? Would he put Will in the shower, adjust the showerhead to stream warm water directly against his crotch, listen to Will wail as he loses control and pisses himself without permission?

Will’s shocked by how much he wants every scenario. Hannibal has wormed himself into Will’s head all over again. Maybe he never wormed out in the first place.

He hears himself sniffling, feels his nose dripping and his eyes filling with tears, but not because of this new revelation, this new discovery. At this point, all Will cares about is Hannibal letting him piss. The longer he waits, the more incapable he becomes of thinking about anything but the fullness of his bladder, of the way he leaks every time his cock twitches.

There’s no warning given before the back of his boxers are pulled over the curve of Will’s ass. The fly is wet enough to grip against his cock and hold itself in place; it pulls on Will enough to make him dribble a little more, a little longer. But nothing else happens. The air in the room is cold on his bared skin, and Will is aware now of how he looks standing here, nose in the corner like a naughty child, gagged, bound, ass presented for only Hannibal knows what.

The palm over his erection is unexpected. Hannibal rubs his hand against him, and then his arm encircles Will from behind, and presses into Will’s stomach. Will writhes within Hannibal’s grasp.

“You have ten minutes left,” says Hannibal, and Will screams into the tape, into the wall, trembling and tired. Hannibal lets him regain some semblance of composure before asking, “Do you need a distraction?” Will is hesitant--alarmed, even--but he nods, anyway, and Hannibal backs off. It was almost easier to hold back with the extra weight against his bladder.

He hears the swish of the curtain rod before he feels it, but Hannibal’s makeshift crop doesn’t precisely hurt. Instead, it does what it is meant to do--distract him, each new strike a bright spot that flares behind his eyes. Will’s mind goes blissfully silent, the constant static and chatter driven out by the sound of the rod slicing through the air and the stinging smack of the leather against his ass. His muscles strain with the force of holding back, but with every hit, more piss leaks out; Hannibal’s distraction is dooming him.

Will’s ass is getting sore and the crop is moving faster, hitting harder. He can’t decide if time is marching forward or limping backward or standing still. It doesn’t matter; he just has to _go._

Hannibal reaches around him, a thumb in each side of his waistband, and the end of the rod jabs into Will’s side. “Dabar,” Hannibal says, then jerks Will’s underwear down. His dick slaps against his stomach. Will is pulled away from the wall and pushed forward at a terrible, painful angle, until he’s staring at the tip of his own cock. “Now,” whispers Hannibal.

The stream hits the duct tape mask, Will’s own body working against him, his erection aiming for his face. He closes his eyes as his cock bobs and the trajectory changes, piss splashing against his forehead, his eyelids, his hair, his nose. It’s warm and feels strangely good, the physical proof of his own relief and of Hannibal’s manipulation of and mastery over him. Will stretches his neck and pushes his face into it.

“Remarkable boy,” Hannibal murmurs, rubbing a soothing hand over Will’s back. “That feels better now, doesn’t it? Has Daddy made you feel better?” But Will’s too weary to nod, and his bladder is almost empty, and he wants nothing more than to be held.

Hannibal eases Will down to his knees on the carpet. He hears the click of a switchblade flipping open, and then the ripping of tape, and then Will’s arms are unfolded and unbound. They flop uselessly at his side. Will can’t even hold his head up any longer and lets himself slump forward against the wall. The smell of urine is overwhelming where it’s soaked into the plaster and the carpeting.

The tape on his hands is sliced off, and then the socks are peeled down Will’s arms. Hannibal rearranges him and leans Will back against his shoulder. Will thinks he will take off the mask, but Hannibal starts to wipe off his face with a damp cloth. He’d never even seen Hannibal get it.

“I have not finished with you,” says Hannibal affectionately. “You managed to earn further punishment in the middle of a disciplinary session. I intend to let you rest for a while, but I would like to leave this--” Hannibal clamps a hand over Will’s taped up mouth. “--in place. Otherwise, I will simply replace it later. Do you have a preference?”

Will shakes his head feebly. At this point, the only thing he prefers is sleep. Hannibal picks him up, cradled to his chest like a child; Will wonders if Hannibal took the pain pills when he was in the shower. He’s laid down on the bed, and Hannibal begins cutting off Will’s shirt and boxer briefs.

Hannibal hums to Will as he wipes him down, looking up at Will occasionally with a genuine smile on his face, like the one he gave Will at Mason’s table. It should scare him, how much Hannibal enjoys seeing him like this, but there’s a sick thrill in Will’s stomach, instead. He struggles to lift his hand, wanting to touch Hannibal, to participate in this new addition to their unique intimacy, but the strength to do so simply isn’t there.

“Gražū.” Hannibal takes Will’s hand in both of his, the cloth abandoned on Will’s stomach. He kisses each knuckle, the pad of each finger, the palm of his hand. “Gražū.”

Will wonders if Hannibal can see him smile underneath the tape. It wouldn’t surprise him. For now, he closes his eyes, Hannibal rubbing his arms one at a time, and floats away to sleep.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of ripping duct tape. A quick glance at the table, and the light that striped across the surface earlier is gone. Will looks up questioningly at Hannibal, sitting on the bed beside Will in that stupid favorite sweater of his.

“I just got off the line with Chad, so to speak,” Hannibal explains. “You needed your rest.”

Will flicks his eyes to the roll of tape in Hannibal’s hands.

“To secure your gag. It loosened as you slept, and you will need it.” Will shifts restlessly, but nods his acquiescence, though he does lay a hand on Hannibal’s arm in search of reassurance. It makes Hannibal chuckle as he begins to add another layer of tape. “I am feeling magnanimous at the moment, and so I have a question for you, lovely boy. Do you believe you can hold still for me, arms and legs spread? Or will you require assistance?”

Honestly, Will isn’t sure, himself. He feels like he could roll over and go to sleep for another three days, not to mention that Hannibal’s help earlier came at a distinct price. His impending punishment was earned; it seems too much to expect leniency of any kind, worse still to ask for it to be given.

Hannibal leans over Will, arms on either side of Will’s head. “There is no shame in accepting help when you need it. I certainly won’t think less of you for it. It has been an intense day, which is unlikely to change.” He brushes a kiss to the mark on Will’s forehead.

It chokes him up when Hannibal does that, just as Hannibal’s insistence on laying his arm precisely over Will’s scar when he holds him does, too. He’s overcome with a bewildering need to touch him. One hand goes to Hannibal’s cheek, the fingers of the other running through his hair. Hannibal leans into Will’s palm, closing his eyes. Will doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of seeing peaceful bliss on Hannibal’s face, of the way Hannibal rubs against his hand like it’s the first time, every time.

“We could compromise,” Hannibal suggests. “I am loathe to have your hands inaccessible, but you are obviously in no condition to guarantee your own compliance with regards to your legs.”

Will tries to convey, “You could be less complicated and just spank me like a normal fucking human,” with his eyebrows, likely with mixed results. Not that it would have done him any good if Hannibal was fluent in eyebrow, anyway--Hannibal does nothing like a normal human, fucking or otherwise. So Will gives up, nods again, and surrenders himself to whatever Hannibal’s designed.

He wastes no time. Will recognizes the rope from the trunk as Hannibal fastens it around an ankle, and _that’s_ going to leave a nasty mark when it inevitably bites into his skin, no matter how nicely Hannibal’s tied it. He had wondered exactly how Hannibal intended to bind him, should Will request to be bound, as there was little more than a rusted metal mattress frame to work with. Leave it to Hannibal to think to run the rope along the floor beneath the bed and use the rope tension itself to keep Will trussed with his legs apart. He gives a perfunctory tug with one foot out of curiosity; sure enough, there’s no give. It’s as if Hannibal had simply bound his ankles side by side and to each other.

“Do you find your predicament satisfactory thus far?” Hannibal asks, now knelt in the floor at the midpoint of the bed. He’s eye-level with Will’s rapidly filling cock, which Will is trying not to think about, as he can’t do take care of it, though his hands are free. Will concentrates instead on the burn of rope on his thigh, of the number of passes Hannibal makes around it before tying it off, of how by the time Hannibal gives the other thigh the same treatment, Will’s legs will be truly immobile.

He can’t stop himself from canting his hips into the air. His hands twitch at his sides, and then Hannibal does the truly unexpected--he presses a tube into Will’s hand.

“Coconut oil.”

Will blinks at Hannibal in the least skeptical way possible, leaving the eyebrow chatter to the experts.

“I thought you might be in need of lubricant.” Satisfied with his knot, Hannibal trims the excess rope, then walks around to the other side of the bed. “I want to watch you pleasure yourself before we begin.”

He groans--Will knows that he does, he can feel it rumble in his chest and crawl up his throat--but the tape catches it, and there’s barely noise, at all. Unconsciously, Will shifts his hips again, and Hannibal slaps the inside of his unbound thigh to make him stop. Hannibal kneels and secures his leg, tying right over the spot he smacked, as Will squeezes the coconut oil into his hand, and begins to masturbate.

The oil feels strange at first, still solid, like rubbing broken Chapstick into his skin. Soon, it begins to warm and melt, liquid heat on his cock, and Will tries to move his legs or even shift down the bed so he can snap his hips up into his fist, but his legs are secure, and fuck if that doesn’t make Will harder still. This is like nothing he’s ever experienced, almost better than a blow job. Unbidden, Will thinks about how Hannibal’s mouth must feel, hot and wet, talented tongue undulating on his frenulum on the upstroke, deadly teeth grazing ever so slightly at the base of his cock on the down.

Hannibal pries the tube from Will’s other hand, and Will hears the cap pop open again. He twists his fist around himself as he strokes, circles his thumb around the head. Will throws his other arm toward the head of the bed and grabs the mattress, trying for leverage in vain. Hannibal murmurs something incomprehensible, and then there are lubed fingers on Will’s nipples, rolling them, tugging them, and Will is about to lose his mind, let alone his load.

“Stop,” Hannibal says, and Will wants to sob for the umpteenth time today, but he does, tugs his hand away from his cock and reaches for Hannibal’s forearm. Will arches into Hannibal’s touch, squirms, pants behind his gag. He’s greedy, wanting everything Hannibal can give him; giving, wanting Hannibal to take whatever he can in return.

“Perhaps you could climax from this alone,” muses Hannibal. “We shall have to try sometime,” and Will tosses his head from side to side, sighs in pleasure as Hannibal’s fingers slow, thumbs flicking smoothly over his nipples. No one’s ever touched him like this before, playing him like a fine-tuned instrument. Hannibal’s hands are both maddening and marvelous.

“I have changed my mind, berniuk,” he says. “Your arms will be restrained. It would not do to have you touch yourself thoughtlessly.” Hannibal removes his hands, and smirks down at Will as he whines pitifully. He wipes his fingers in Will’s hair, like he’s nothing more than a convenient towel, and secures each wrist in turn, just as he had bound the rest of him, rope catching against the metal legs of the bed frame, tension keeping him in place.

Will feels him get off the bed, and the next sound he hears is the now familiar swish of the curtain rod as Hannibal’s crop meets the tender skin on the inside of his arm. It smarts, but it doesn’t hurt, and Will wonders what Hannibal is playing at even as the crop comes down on the other arm.

“It’s important to tenderize you first,” he explains, “to stimulate the pituitary gland into secreting endorphins. The more and more forcefully I strike you,” and Hannibal’s crop comes down harder to illustrate, “the more and more peptides are released. Do you know--” A particularly vicious smack near Will’s armpit; Will moans and attempts to press up into it. Hannibal laughs. “I suppose you can’t answer that question, so I will tell you. The word ‘endorphin’ is a hybrid word, a blend, consisting of ‘endo’, which means ‘endogenous’ or coming from within, and ‘morphine’, which requires no further explanation.”

Will is barely hanging on to Hannibal’s words; he can’t believe he’s being given a grammar lesson at the same time as he’s being cropped. His eyes long ago rolled back into his head, and Will doesn’t even know how to categorize the mindless mumbling coming from his mouth. Every slap of the leather is harder, brighter, stinging and sweet.

“‘Endorphin’ thus means morphine produced by the body. To sum up, the more I beat you, the more analgesic substance your central nervous system will create. And oh, dear boy, how you will need those pain receptors flowing.”

Stripes on the insides of Will’s thighs, and the pain is echoing longer. Particularly rough slaps to his nipples, and Will wants to retreat inside his mind, but all the doors are closed and barred. He can sink into his brain and put them in a different location, but the situation remains the same.

Hannibal notices--of _course_ he notices--and asks, “Where have you taken us, Will?” though he knows full well that Will cannot answer. Will is glad for it; how embarrassing it would be, to describe to Hannibal the gray jumpsuit he is wearing, how Will is nude and strapped down within the confines of the glass cage at the BSHCI, the two of them locked together forever like this, and endless cycle of pain and pleasure doubling in on itself. The rope is reformed into those wonderful padded cuffs, and the bed is so much softer against Will’s bare skin, and the crude tape mask is transformed into a far more comfortable muzzle, like Will saw on the websites he never dared tell Molly about.

The crop eventually stops falling, having progressed down his ribcage, as if Hannibal were playing a xylophone, and Will’s chest heaves with his breath. Everything prickles with raw nerves, leaving Will dizzy.

And then the belt slaps down on the inside of his thigh, and Will shouts. The shock resonates within his body, and the panic begins, an all-too-welcome fear that makes him tug uselessly at his restraints as the belt comes down again and again on all of the sensitized spots. Will can’t decide whether to writhe away or into it; the realization that he can’t do either is heady. He’s never been this aroused in his life, and his skin sings in harmony with his gasps and pleas and cries.

Will can’t wait to revisit this scene from the other side, to watch Hannibal’s design in action. He wonders what his body will look like from above, sharp red welts crossing his limbs and torso, the beginnings of bruises. Hannibal will push into them as they fade, Will knows, to see how long he can keep his non-lethal marks on Will’s body.

Daddy will be so proud of his work, so happy with his baby boy that bears them, that gave himself freely as clay to be sculpted and reborn into something beautiful. The leather beats against his musculature and chest like a drum, and Will welcomes it.

He feels the bed sink beside him as he sobs uselessly, broken, beaten, lost to the pain. Hannibal takes a moment to run a cool cloth over Will’s face, wiping away the dried tears and the snot. Will sees the sadistic grin in his eyes, and he can’t help the shiver that wracks his frame.

The cloth is discarded, laid over one of Will’s forearms. It’s distracting, and Will tries to dislodge it, but it doesn’t budge. He wants to experience the discomfort in its entirety, not be annoyed by a damp rag on his arm.

“I’m going to begin now,” Hannibal says. He returns one hand to Will’s chest to pinch at his nipples; the other taps lightly on Will’s balls, and what Will would have classified as terror before is horror now as it dawns on him what Hannibal is about to do.

The taps ramp in intensity slowly, carefully. Will’s nipples are getting sore and beginning to chafe, and he wants to shake Hannibal off, but he can’t, and Will _loves_ that it isn’t an option. This is what he’s craved for so long, since he and Hannibal began their conversations: to cede over everything that comprises Will Graham and see what happens. If only Hannibal had asked for allowance to wind him up, to watch him go. But Will’s fantasy is becoming reality, and now he can accept it, and nothing can come between them.

He’s screaming, screaming, screaming, but the tapes catches the sounds, forces them back down his throat and into his gut where they pool and meld with the rest of his trembling arousal. Will knows that his voice will be all but gone soon, that he will suffer meekly and quietly. It feels like he’s on fire, his brain and body and Hannibal all working in tandem to subjugate him. He consented to this; he does not regret it, but dear _fuck_ it hurts, it hurts, it _hurts._

Hannibal isn’t tapping anymore--he’s slapping Will’s balls as hard as is possible from the angle. He loses time, loses track, loses the energy to even moan. The sickening smack of skin on unforgiving skin pounds in Will’s ears; it even sounds like music to him now.

When Hannibal begins punching, Will finds the immediate stamina to wail again. Once, twice, thrice--there are no numbers left after three, but Hannibal keeps going, and he’s thrashing and begging Hannibal to stop--

Will comes with a jolt, electrified, convulsing. Cum shoots across his stomach; he hisses as some of it lands within the wounds from the belt. But he’s still hard, and he still wants to come, and Hannibal keeps punching harder and harder.

Suddenly, Hannibal stops, one hand squeezing at the base of Will’s cock. He hears the whistle of the belt and has enough time to scream “No!” before the leather cracks against his balls and Hannibal strokes up, once, and Will comes again. The force of it knocks him from awareness, and he glides into the relief as his muscles slowly begin to untense.

Everything hurts, and it’s beautiful.

 

* * *

 

Will didn’t exactly blackout, but he comes back to his senses in Hannibal’s arms, in a lukewarm bath, Hannibal having somehow gotten them both in the small hotel tub. His hair is wet and smells like Hannibal’s shampoo. Water is pouring over his body, cupped in one of Hannibal’s gorgeous hands.

“Welcome back,” Hannibal whispers into Will’s ear before kissing his temple. Will opens his mouth, but Hannibal shushes him. “Don’t try to speak right now, širdie. Wait until I’ve put you to bed and made you a cup of tea.”

“Tėvelis.” Will’s voice sounds foreign, a hideous croak, like old nails on broken glass.

Hannibal tucks Will’s face into his neck so that he can rinse the other side of Will’s body. “When you have healed,” he begins, “I will give you a proper bath. Clean, fresh soap and heat and bubbles.”

Will can’t help it--he giggles. A serial killer promising him a bubble bath. It’s ridiculously endearing, how gentle Hannibal can be in contrast to his cruelty. Will loves both.

“You were _glorious,_ Will.” Hannibal sniffs once, and Will is in utter disbelief, that he has somehow managed to move Hannibal to tears. “Ecstatic. You complete me.” He sighs and lays his head on top of Will’s. “Mažai žvėris. The monster of my heart. I ached for you for so very, very long, and here you are.”

It’s a struggle, but Will maneuvers his heavy head so as to kiss Hannibal’s neck.

“Mine,” says Hannibal. “Only, ever mine. My little boy for whom I hungered.”

 _Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!_ Will thinks. He wonders if he can convince Hannibal to read it to him sometime. Though he’s never been interested in age play, Will certainly feels small and helpless right now. Hannibal would love _Where the Wild Things Are,_ anyway, would probably be a dork and read it to him in Italian or Latin or maybe even Old Church Slavonic. He giggles again at the thought of it.

“I am so pleased to hear you happy. To think that I have put such a smile on your face.” Hannibal nuzzles into Will’s wet hair, and Will tries to nuzzle back, but only succeeds in wiping his nose into his shoulder.

The rest of Hannibal’s words flow into a gentle buzzing, but he doesn’t seem to mind that Will isn’t listening, and Will lets himself drift again. He settles back into his suffering form lying on the bed once again. Hannibal is dressing him very carefully, a long sleeved cotton shirt that Will’s never seen before, and socks, but no pants or underwear, for which Will is extremely grateful. He helps Will sit up and against the pillows, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.

A cup of hot tea is pressed to his lips, and Will drinks. It’s so incredibly soothing, though a small part of him worries that the whole ordeal is about to start again.

“You are free to use the facilities as you need,” Hannibal tells him, reading his mind once again. “I will be happy to assist you back and forth if necessary.”

Will finishes the tea quickly, and gratefully takes the pain pill Hannibal puts into his mouth, followed by a small sip of water. Hannibal moves to get up, but Will grabs his arm, so he crawls carefully over Will’s body instead. He pulls Will against him once more, cradling him, moving them both to lie down. Will’s ear rests against the side of Hannibal’s chest, and he lets Hannibal’s heartbeat lull him until he’s fully relaxed.

After a while, he reaches for Hannibal’s face, and stretches up to kiss him as Will’s wanted to do for hours now. His lips are sore from the tape, but Will takes Hannibal’s bottom lip between his anyway, tugging until Hannibal grins and dips his tongue into Will’s mouth as he has wordlessly asked for. Hannibal’s mouth is smooth and slick as Will moves their tongues together. Will kisses the corner of his mouth and Hannibal’s chin before he begins to yawn. Hannibal holds him tighter, and lays him back down next to his chest, Will underneath him, Hannibal still propped up on an elbow.

He ruffles Will’s hair, then untangles it with his fingers as it dries against the pillow. “You will have to explain what an idiot string is to me in the morning,” he says, and then Will is asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should go without saying, but use safewords, and never bust someone's balls without talking about it first. And coconut oil will absolutely be the best lube you ever use, but don't use it with latex condoms!
> 
> Translations:  
> -mažai žvėris: my little beast  
> -mažai žmogus: little one  
> -atleiskite: forgive me  
> -berniuk: my boy  
> -širdie: my heart  
> -ne: no  
> -tėvelis: daddy  
> -prašau: please  
> -labas berniuk: good boy  
> -dabar: now  
> -gražū: beautiful  
> 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the last two chapters were _Kink: The Enkinkening_ , then this one is _Fluff: The Enfluffening_. :D

Will wakes himself up in the middle of the night with his own pained whimpering, so sore he can hardly stand it. He wants to kick the sheets and blankets off, but it hurts to move, and he’s shivering hard enough to make his teeth chatter. Instinctively, Will reaches out for Hannibal; in his sleep, Will must have turned toward him, seeing as he ends up with a hand on Hannibal’s sweatered chest.

Not for the first time, he is grateful that Hannibal is a light sleeper. He covers Will’s hand with his own, holding it against his heart. It’s sickeningly saccharine, which is exactly what Will needs.

A trembling groan sneaks out of his mouth, and Will is wrong; he needs more than this, more than cuddling. What Will urgently wants is _coddling._

“Regrets?” Hannibal asks, and Will huffs.

“I don’t think my thighs are ever going to be the same,” says Will. “And let’s not even talk about my balls.”

Hannibal kisses his nose of all places. “Precious, silly boy. Let me help you.”

The bed jostles as Hannibal gets out of it, shifting the sheets over Will’s aching body, and he grunts as the cheap motel cotton irritates his skin. Will doesn’t even need to look to know that his thighs are covered in raised, angry red welts; they’re the only warm part on his body. This bodily chill is normal afterward, Will knows, and to be expected--he’s read extensively to satisfy his curiosity, to fuel his Hannibal-laden fantasies over the years.

Will turns his head to watch Hannibal collecting the tools of his trade. “You’ve done this before.”

Hannibal spares him a glance, then goes back to filling an ice bag. “Yes,” he says nonchalantly. “I was very active in the fetish community during my teens and twenties.” Hannibal lifts an eyebrow, smirking slightly, then adds, “And I was not always on the delivering end.”

“It’s difficult to picture you letting someone else master you,” says Will. He winces, throat raw, every word rubbed rough.

“I said I received, not that I was mastered.” Hannibal outright winks. “Only once, and I chose to learn the art of domination after that. Before, I was quite the popular submissive, what with my high tolerance for pain. It became a challenge, to see if I could be broken.”

“So you were a brat?”

Hannibal sits on Will’s side of the bed. “It does help me keep your attitude in perspective.” Will makes to sit up, and Hannibal _tuts_ at him, smooths a hand over Will’s forehead, through his hair. “I only want you to rest, Will. Be a good patient.” More quietly, “You are treasured. Allow me to show you.”

Normally, Will would gag over Hannibal’s flowery, over-romantic prose. Right now, though, after enjoying such suffering, Will drinks it in, lets it warm him, _bathes_ in it. He’s astonished to find how much more vulnerable and receptive he is now in the aftermath, so Will allows himself to melt into Hannibal’s touch.

Hannibal carefully pulls back the sheet, but Will still grimaces as it moves over his wounds, and he dreads where the ice pack is bound to go. “You bear your pain so beautifully, mažai žvėris,” Hannibal praises, and it soaks into Will’s skin like a salve. “How much sweeter it is now that you are complicit, that you submit freely.”

“Did you enjoy it bef--oh _Christ,_ that’s cold.” Will closes his eyes and pants; Hannibal takes his hand and caresses the back of it with his thumb, mumbling nonsense at Will to calm him down. Just as Will’s breathing evens out, he hears the rustle of ice in the pack, and then Hannibal’s hand is under his shirt, an ice cube between cold fingers trailing slowly up his stomach and chest. Will jolts, and it’s impossible to decide whether it hurts more than it heals, whether it heals more than it rekindles the fire in his belly.

“I wonder if there is any sensation you wouldn’t enjoy.” Hannibal drags the edge of the cube around a sore nipple, and Will grits his teeth as he pushes up into it. “And yes, širdie, I have always loved to see you sweat and cringe and cry. You are art, and so I viewed you, aided in your descent.” Finished with the first, Hannibal moves the melting cube to the other nipple, and Will tosses his head on the pillow. “Your agony is divine, a psalm and a sura, but I much prefer to pray _with_ you than to prey _on_ you.” He pauses, but keeps moving the ice over Will’s chest, then back down to his stomach; cool water pools in his navel. “How does it feel, berniuk?”

Will feels hazy again, almost glazed. “I haven’t decided yet,” he says breathily.

“Are you warmer?”

“My balls are freezing off,” Will laughs, “but the rest of me? Yeah, kind of.”

Hannibal leaves the sliver of remaining ice to run down Will’s side and melt on the bed. He pulls up Will’s shirt, mindful of the marks left on the insides of his arms. “This may prove more confusing still,” and Hannibal bends to take a nipple into his mouth.

Will shouts Hannibal’s name, whether as warning or in thanks, he doesn’t know. The contrast between the cold left by the ice and the moist heat of Hannibal’s mouth is exquisite, and Will’s hands find their way off the bed and into Hannibal’s silver hair, silken and long. Will knows Hannibal has left it down for Will to play with, so he does, winding his fingers into it and holding Hannibal’s head to his chest, sighing his pleasure as Hannibal moans against him, gently suckling.

The same treatment is given to the other, and Will’s cock is trying its best to harden, but the ice pack makes it impossible. He’s turned on without the blood being able to rush to his groin, leaving Will pleasantly warm, arousal pooling uselessly in his gut. It hurts, yes, but it is bearable, even welcome. There’s a small, quiet part of him that wonders if this is how it must feel to be caged; Will decides to examine it later, lest Hannibal somehow pick up on Will considering the finer points of letting his cock be locked up.

Hannibal pulls off, and there’s that wonderful pleased smile again, beaming down at Will. It makes him feel small and happy and hopelessly, helplessly loved.

The ice pack is removed, and it stings, and Will whines--it’s easy to let go like this, to emote freely--and Hannibal puts two fingers to Will’s lips, likely just to quiet him. He lets instinct take over and opens his mouth for them; Hannibal’s tiny gasp makes Will grin around his fingertips.

“Labas berniuk,” and Will enjoys that, too, that Hannibal trusts him enough to use his mother tongue. He feels like he should write Chad a thank-you card for being the catalyst. Will sucks on the fingers in his mouth, remembering how he sank to his knees at Hannibal’s feet, the weight of the cock on his tongue, in his virgin mouth. He’d never even gone down on a woman before--Margot had her own agenda, and Molly wasn’t interested. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest that he won’t ever have that particular experience.

Hannibal takes his fingers away, and Will feels like pouting. The hydro gel is soothing on his skin, though, and he closes his eyes in relief.

“I’ll have to fetch the antiseptic cream for your testes,” he says, and Will chuckles; who else besides Hannibal would use the word “testes” after heavy play? “There are a few small abrasions, but, surprisingly, no swelling. The ice pack was likely unnecessary.” Will can practically hear Hannibal’s haughty look of satisfaction. “You may experience slightly painful erections for a while,” Hannibal tells him, “but nothing you wouldn’t otherwise enjoy.”

Will opens one eye; Hannibal is staring at him, amusement in his own. “Just...nothing sharp near my dick, okay?”

“Ah. Yes.” Hannibal moves back to his side of the bed and sits cross-legged next to Will. He tugs lightly at the tail of Will’s shirt, currently up to his armpits, and they wrestle it off of Will together. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to discuss what we’re doing,” he says while the neck of the shirt is trapped under Will’s ears.

“It feels a little late for this conversation,” Will grumbles through the cloth. He’s getting accustomed to not hearing himself clearly, and honestly doesn’t know what to make of that. “And we already talked kinks. That’s what started all of this, if you recall.”

Hannibal finally succeeds in wrangling the shirt over Will’s head. “A discussion of kinks is hardly a settlement of limits,” he explains. When Will has the audacity to roll his eyes, mostly to see what sort of response it would garner, Hannibal taps his cheek. “Careful, berniuk. I will not hesitate to punish you again, recovering or not.”

“So is this going to be an all-the-time kind of thing?” If this is, in fact, going to be their everyday dynamic, then Will is probably pushing his luck, but he wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t made some piss poor choices at one point or another.

“Do you wish for it to be?”

Will thinks about it while Hannibal spreads the hydro gel over the inside of his arms. “Not avoiding the question, but that feels really, really good.”

“I did say I would take care of you, did I not?”

“You did. I wasn’t sure in which sense of the phrase, that’s all.” Hannibal’s eyebrows shift upward, but he maintains his focus on his work, even going so far as to lift Will’s right arm to apply the gel. “You really do intend to spoil me, don’t you?” Will asks. The man bought them tickets to _Hamilton,_ but it hadn’t truly set in how dedicated Hannibal would be to indulging him.

Hannibal swallows, and Will watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs, transfixed, possessed by an urge to mouth at it, to make Hannibal fall apart from abundant pleasure the way he took Will to pieces with pain. “It would be more accurate to use the words ‘cosset’ and ‘pamper’, but yes.”

The tranquil fog that had settled over Will prior to the conversation has dissipated completely. “Can we go back to the part where we aren’t having a meaningful discussion? Is that something we can save for breakfast? I just--”

All of a sudden, he feels intensely rude. It’s hardly the first time that Will’s ever interrupted Hannibal, nor is it likely to be the last. Still, Will isn’t the one calling the shots. No, no, he’d gone and handed that off, traded away his freedom. If Hannibal wants to talk about the nature of that exchange now, then who is he to refuse?

Will clenches his jaw, feeling slightly sick, and he’s researched enough to know that he’s hurtling from a great height toward subdrop. He’d never thought to experience anything related to submission, at all, but he would prefer to avoid this related topic in its entirety.

“What’s wrong, Will?” He hears the rustling of cloth as Hannibal wipes his hands off with Will’s shirt. “Are you alright?”

Will can’t bring himself to do more than shake his head, and even _that’s_ a strain. Hannibal’s palms are warm on the sides of Will’s face, but he struggles to make eye contact. It’s getting hard to breathe.

“Tell me what you need,” Hannibal says, and Will wonders if finally experiencing a drop is what made Hannibal switch sides. The sense of urgency in his voice is bewildering.

All Will can think to say, to whisper in a tiny voice, is, “Daddy?”

And Hannibal isn’t mindful of the injuries now, simply scoops Will up into his arms and his lap, somehow managing to maneuver himself to lean back against the wall. Will’s face is peppered with lingering kisses until Will raises his arms to throw them around Hannibal’s back, flinching as the insides of his arms press against Hannibal’s sweater, probably wiping off all of the hydro gel that Hannibal had dutifully applied. He buries his forehead into Hannibal’s strong, thick neck, breathing in deeply.

Will picks out the familiar albeit untranslated phrases in Hannibal’s hushed voice. “Mažai žmogus,” he says, and, “širdie,” and, “mažai žvėris.” Though Will wonders what, exactly, they mean, he has no intention of asking. Let tėvelis teach him as he chooses. The cadence is palliative, and that is enough.

“Atleiskite,” and Will understands that. “It is not a good time for such talk. I forget too easily how weary the psyche becomes after trauma, whether through play or otherwise.”

“It’s okay.” He drags his hands down Hannibal’s back until he can slip them under the bottom hem of his sweater. Hannibal’s skin is hot to the touch--he always seems to run warm--and it reminds Will of how cold he is. “Caught it in time. You had me drifting back under and then _bam!_ We’re talking shop.”

“You seemed lucid,” explains Hannibal. “I will remember next time that it takes you longer to truly come out of your trance.”

“I…” Will stops long enough to let himself suck at the side of Hannibal’s neck, biting gently, running his tongue over the indentations left behind by his teeth. Hannibal’s breath stutters. “It was wonderful,” continues Will, voice low, “to wake up and still be the focus of your attention. To have it all be over, but also not, kept in limbo. I wanted to stay there as long as was possible, was prudent.”

“How I yearn to keep you there,” Hannibal says roughly, and Will’s heart flutters and quickens and throbs inside his ribs. “You asked if this would be a constant in our lives, and I would gladly have it if you chose. I could toy with you for _days_ and remain unsatisfied.”

 _“Fuck,”_ Will groans. “I would let you.”

Hannibal pets Will’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You were somewhat correct, earlier,” he says. “Taking care of someone means to give them what they need. Part of what you need is subjugation.” His fingers dig into Will’s cheek, nails cutting like claws. “Torture,” Hannibal continues. “Cruelty.”

Will can’t even categorize the noises coming out of his mouth. “Yes,” and it turns into a hiss at the end. “I want it. All of it.”

“But,” and Hannibal’s fingers turn soft again, “the strong hand you need must also protect you, comfort you, provide for you.” His voice drops as Hannibal turns Will’s face away from him and lowers his lips to brush against Will’s ear. “Would you like to hear how?”

Will has never thought of material wealth as being particularly arousing. Then again, he remembers how greatly he enjoyed Hannibal’s opulent lifestyle, how baffled he was by his being included in it. Even from the very beginning of their friendship, Hannibal sought to nurture him. Chad had called it “grooming”; perhaps there’s something to that. Whatever it was, however Hannibal meant to gain from caring for him then, Will’s more than amenable to the idea now.

So he takes a deep breath and says, “Prašau.” Hannibal’s exhale is high-pitched, and Will feels powerful to have drawn it from him.

“I want to clothe you as you deserve to be clothed,” says Hannibal. He runs his hand down Will’s neck, his arm, his belly, fingertips dragging over the welts on Will’s thigh. When Will mewls and shifts in pain, Hannibal starts rubbing back and forth along the wounds.

“This is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning, isn’t it?” Will’s sweating and shivering and a masochistic mess.

But Hannibal ignores him, even though Will can see him watching the tears well in his eyes and trail down his face. “You have such a wonderfully classic physique,” continues Hannibal. “It was shameful that you kept it hidden under ill-fitting garments. I will drape you in thin melange and cashmere, outfits tight like a second skin so that I have to peel you out of your clothes. Still finer things when we are alone: silk chiffon, crepe de chine--” His breath hitches, and he smells Will, presses his nose deep into Will’s curls. “Lace.”

Will’s heart is pounding as he asks, “Where?”

“Where would you like?”

There’s not enough air in the room. Will’s so hopelessly aroused, but his balls are killing him, and his filling cock, while spared abuse, hurts almost as badly. “Anywhere,” Will says, unsure if it’s Hannibal’s arousal or his own intrigue that answers the question. “More, tėvelis,” he says. “Tell me more.”

“I like you greedy, širdie. It becomes you.” Hannibal takes his balls in one hand and rolls them, and Will screams. “That becomes you, too. But I would torment you with more than pain. Pleasure can become unbearable, as well. And I have the means to please you in many, many ways.”

Will’s hips are bucking, and he’s sobbing, and he can’t decide how it feels, but he knows he doesn’t want Hannibal to stop. Hannibal does stop, though, and Will is wrapped in a blanket, fleecy and warm, the one Hannibal uses when he naps on drives. It surrounds him with Hannibal’s scent; any sane person would tell Will that shouldn't make him feel safe, but sanity isn’t a necessity in their world now. He’s been set free from all of that.

“I know what you desire, mažai žvėris. You thought you would win our little game because you insisted you only fed off of your partner, that their kinks were yours.” Hannibal returns to carding his hand slowly through Will’s hair. “This game we have played, now that you have realized what I wish from you, has made you more accepting of yourself and your own desires. A recurring theme between us, I believe.”

Will nods, because Hannibal’s right, but he’s too comfortable now to talk. Aching, but content.

“Atleiskite,” Hannibal says again. “I have done a poor job of letting you rest. You are too tempting, Will.” He runs a thumb along Will’s bottom lip. “What would you like? Anything at all.”

“Do we…” Will wriggles a hand out of the blanket and holds his throat; it’s irritated again, thanks to Hannibal’s inability to keep his hands to himself. “Do we still have those little packages of hot chocolate?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Can you make me a cup? With an extra pack of marshmallows?”

“If I must.” He gets up and goes to the kitchenette while Will shifts to lie on his side, spreading his legs apart as if walking mid stride to keep his thighs from rubbing together. Hannibal’s putting water in the microwave, grumbling about processed food and the lack of milk; it’s adorably domestic, and Will is again struck by the dichotomy that is his--

He scrubs the end of his thumb over the ring on his left hand. Before the game changed, Hannibal was his husband. What is he now?

But Will doesn’t ask--that, too, can wait for breakfast. Instead, he says, “So. Lingerie.”

“What about it?”

“You never mentioned it when I started guessing kinks. I even specifically _mentioned_ panties.”

“It isn’t a fetish,” explains Hannibal, opening the packet of hot chocolate mix like it’s going to bite him. “Is it a crime to want to see you in lovely things?”

“There’s treating me like a Ken doll, and then there’s treating me like a Barbie.”

Shrugging, Hannibal says, “I hardly see it as feminizing you, Will. There is no ulterior motive here, I assure you.”

Will barks a laugh. “There’s always an ulterior motive with you.”

The microwave beeps, and Hannibal looks at him over the open door. “Perhaps I merely want you to be comfortably clothed when I keep you at home.” The corner of his mouth perks up. “Clothes are nothing more than clothes. No threat posed to your masculinity whatsoever.”

“I’ve never been particularly concerned with my masculinity,” says Will, smiling. “But what’s all this about keeping me at home?”

Hannibal comes back to bed, stirring as he goes. “We are wanted men, last I heard.” He eases himself down, and Will eases himself up. “I imagine we’ll be in hiding for a while longer still.”

Will bites the inside of his cheek and tastes blood, but it keeps his hands steady enough to take the mug of hot chocolate from Hannibal. “And you intend to put that time to good use.”

“Of course.”

The chocolate burns the roof of Will’s mouth, and he feels a tiny marshmallow stick between two molars. “No...no hunting?” Will takes another sip, swishing it around in his mouth to loosen the marshmallow.

“I never said we wouldn’t go out, at all,” and if Hannibal looks any more smug, Will’s going to assume he snuck an ortolan into the mug alongside the extra marshmallows. “How else am I to show you off in the hand-tailored suits I will inevitably buy for you?”

“Is it as inevitable as the frilly nightgowns you seem to think I’ll be wearing?”

Hannibal finally sits back against the wall, hand against his abdomen. “I detest the word ‘frilly’. We seem to have wildly different ideas regarding what I want to dress you in.”

“Illuminate me.” But Hannibal stares at him, silent. “What?”

“Don’t think that I would be disinclined to take you over my knee for impudence, berniuk, regardless of your current state,” he says, taking the mug from Will’s hand and setting it on the bedside table. “You should show me more respect.”

Will lets the back of his head fall against the wall. “I can’t know I’m crossing the line if we haven’t decided where the line is.”

“I thought we were waiting until breakfast to discuss this.”

“Then can we talk about spanking me th--” He interrupts himself with a yawn. “--then?”

Hannibal’s eyes soften. “Come here.”

“Where?”

“In front of me, as yesterday. Let me hold you while I apply the antiseptic cream.”

So they negotiate Will between Hannibal’s legs, back to his front. Hannibal unwraps Will from the blanket, and just like that, he’s freezing again, any remnants of energy that he’d held on to while waiting for chocolate yawned out alongside the air from his lungs. He hugs his arms around himself, curls down and inward.

“Up, up, up,” Hannibal says, and Will feels movement behind him, but he can’t manage to sit up. Goosebumps prick up his arms and down his legs.

Will doesn’t feel the neck of the shirt being pulled down over his head until the soft fabric is already lying on his shoulders. One arm at a time, Hannibal dresses Will in his own favorite sweater, which now seems only red and not ridiculous. It smells even more strongly of Hannibal than the blanket did, and that warms him up as much as the Merino wool.

“Now,” begins Hannibal, smoothing the sweater over Will’s stomach, “when I speak of lingerie, I do not mean the ludicrous styles of today, hideous and tacky. Whereas I require the clothes I take you out in to be form-fit, your at-home wear would be loose and flowing. Not bras and panties, but robes that hit below the knee, tap pants that--”

Will exhales quickly, a shuddering breath. He hadn’t realized Hannibal had even opened the tube full of antiseptic cream, making the slick slide of fingers over his balls as surprising as it is excruciating.

“Brave boy.” Hannibal kisses his temple. “Labas berniuk. Holding up so well for me. Shall I continue?” As Will suspects, Hannibal asks, but does not wait for an answer. “I see you in tap pants that fall to mid thigh. The vintage pieces are most elegant. Muted colors--pale peach, mossy green, creamy yellow. Lustrous gold embroidery and champagne lace. Pearl buttons--oh, širdie, how I long to adorn you in pearls, both in and out of our rooms.”

“Why pearls?”

“Why not?”

Will’s laugh is shaky, but it exists. “What else, Hannibal? What else are you going to put me in?” The nip at his ear is unexpected, and Will yelps before he can stop himself. This is yet another part of Hannibal he’s never seen--a _playful_ side, beyond playing with hearts and minds and his own food.

“You will put yourself in them,” Hannibal tells him, “though I will most certainly help you remove them later.” He finishes applying the cream and wipes his fingers on the bed’s fitted sheet. “Especially the more dramatic, delicate lingerie.”

“Such as?” Will lets Hannibal bundle him back up in the blanket and allows his heavy eyelids to droop closed. There’s more shifting and careful navigating before they’re lying together, Hannibal spooned around him; sure enough, his arm drapes across Will where the carved smile sits.

“Items that leave nothing to the imagination. I often thought of you in sheer black one-piece garments, legs trimmed with wide lace just above the knee, thin ribbon straps on your shoulders, a flutter-sleeved bed jacket to match. You are covered and nude to me all at once. Always, always beautiful.”

Will sleepily murmurs, “That might be okay.” He yawns, wider this time, longer, and seeks out one of Hannibal’s bare feet with his own sock-covered foot. “Maybe if you let me get that dog I asked about a few weeks ago.”

Hannibal holds him more tightly. “I don’t seem to recall the conversation.”

If he weren’t so damn _happy,_ Will might push the issue. Instead, Will snuggles back into Hannibal’s chest, allows Hannibal to adjust the blanket and his sweater so he can lay kisses across Will’s shoulders, and lets himself be warmed and lulled to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> -mažai žvėris: my little beast  
> -širdie: my heart  
> -berniuk: my boy  
> -labas berniuk: good boy  
> -mažai žmogus: little one  
> -atleiskite: forgive me  
> -prašau: please
> 
> Extra content warnings for this chapter:  
> -Will comes very close to subdrop.  
> -very small mention of spanking


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be finishing up this fic for #[NovemberAmnesty](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/post/151623911014/hannibal-cre-ate-ive-presents-novemberamnesty-an). Our journey nears its end! I estimate that there will be about four more chapters beyond this one, but we all know how accurate my writing estimates tend to be...
> 
> I love each and every one of you sinners. <3

Even in Hannibal’s wildest and sweetest of dreams, he could never have imagined how accepting Will would be of his desires, of his intentions. Fantasies have kept him stable since Will was released from the BSHCI; during his exile in Florence; as he suffered in the asylum himself. Will is worthy of attention in a world where no one else is, and he has been the sole focus of Hannibal’s for years. Not once, however, did Hannibal expect to be given allowance to worship him.

Hannibal knows he needs to sleep--their earlier game has greatly aggravated his side--but he can’t bring himself to close his eyes, though all he can see from over the top of Will’s head is the opposite wall, orange and odious. Will groans quietly in his sleep as he unconsciously rubs his legs together, and Hannibal sighs at the sound, smiles as he struggles to keep his hands to himself. If he can keep Will sliding back and forth between the opposite ends of the pain-pleasure spectrum for the rest of their lives, Hannibal will count himself a lucky man.

From what he knows of Will, so will he. Still, it never hurts to refresh himself on the details.

His eyes unfocus, his vision blurs, and the hideous pattern on the wallpaper melts away, from orange to yellow to the warm gold of the light streaming from the windows of Will’s house in Wolf Trap. Hannibal is hesitant to visit his memory palace alone after the short tour he took through it barely twelve hours before. It was obvious that the rooms were growing and shifting and changing; now that they’ve experienced this organic shift in their relationship and their understanding of each other, Hannibal can only assume that his and Will’s palaces have merged further together still.

Miles away, Will shifts in his arms. Hannibal feels him turning slowly, Will’s breath sharp as his wounds are stretched, pulled, pushed. Will slips his arm beneath Hannibal’s and resettles his head on the pillow, but his breathing doesn’t slow again.

The door to the farmhouse opens. A single dog comes rushing down the stairs and across the fields of Hibbing, Minnesota, deftly avoiding the tableau of Cassie Boyd. Sure enough, Will follows, but doesn’t come out to meet Hannibal, simply leans against the railing and grins at him.

The corgi circles around Hannibal’s legs, then trots back off toward its owner, tongue hanging out of its mouth foolishly. It leaves a trail of black down feathers behind it like breadcrumbs.

“Can’t sleep?” Will asks Hannibal as he approaches. He looks as comfortable here as he did in bed, still wearing Hannibal’s red sweater and a pair of plaid pajama pants. It’s confusing, both of them wearing the same clothes, borrowing pieces from each other even in the smallest of ways.

“I could ask the same of you.” says Hannibal.

“I’m not going to be able to lie down comfortably for a week.” Before Hannibal can ask, Will says, “Still no regrets.” He pushes off the rails to meet Hannibal at the stairs, holding his hand out to him. Hannibal takes it and is briefly startled when their fingers weave together in their terrible bed in Richfield.

“I did not expect to find you here,” admits Hannibal. He holds Will’s own front door open for him, but the corgi runs in first. It hops up in Mason’s chair and curls into a feathery ball.

Will shrugs as he follows the dog inside. “Wasn’t sure it was possible, to be honest. It’s not how my empathy works. Want to go back to sleep, see if it holds?”

“Where did you get the idea?”

“Oh come on, Hannibal. You recommended the story to me.” Will sits on the bed, then flops down on it, then beckons Hannibal over. Hannibal can’t refuse his boy--particularly not this kind of request--so he crawls into bed next to him. They take their positions, more or less; the house gradually gets hazier, and then night falls as they go back to sleep in the outside world.

“I shall have to reread it,” Hannibal says, resting his forehead against Will’s.

“So what are you here looking for?”

“This is where I discovered your...proclivities.” He wets his lips. “I made many trips here without you, and learned what I could not ask.”

“In addition to setting me up to take the fall for you.”

“In addition to that unfortunate necessity, yes.” Will kisses the tip of his nose, and Hannibal feels himself relax further. “Beautiful boy.”

“Found my porn stash then, I take it.” Hannibal keeps quiet, choosing instead to watch realization creep over Will’s face. “You never needed to play the guessing game. You already knew all of my answers.”

“Not all of them,” says Hannibal. “Only the ones of which you, yourself, were already aware.” Will closes his eyes and his breathing deepens as Hannibal begins to twine his fingers in Will’s hair, winding individual curls around his fingertips.

“I don’t want to lose one dynamic in the service of another,” Will confesses.

“Neither do I. But I do not doubt our ability to strike a balance. This is a journey I wish to take  _ with _ you,  širdie, not simply on your behalf.”

Will’s voice shakes as he says, “I’m afraid to lose myself to you again.”

“And I am terrified I will take too much of what you give me.” His hands still in Will’s hair. “I told Abigail I was frightened just yesterday. That I would lose control of myself and push too far.”

“What did she say?” Will asks, eyes popping open again.

“That I should trust you to know yourself.”

Will snorts. “Abigail can give patently terrible advice.”

“Such as?”

Holding Hannibal more tightly, he says, “She told me I needed a family. I knew she meant you, but then there was that whole, you know,  _ unpleasantness _ in Florence, so I convinced myself she meant I should move on. So I really doubt that I know myself as well as she seems to think I do.”

“Is she not simply an extension of yourself? Thus, if Abigail knows you, then  _ you _ know you.”

Will frowns as he considers Hannibal’s words. “I suppose you have a point there.” He turns his head away, breaks eye contact completely. “We’ve just found ourselves on equal footing. Finally managed to level the playing field. What you’re offering me...God, Hannibal, I want it, but I don’t want to be…” Will makes a noise of frustration deep in his throat.

“Submission,” says Hannibal. “Submission, but not subservience. That is what you want.”

Slowly, Will nods. He clings to Hannibal more tightly.

“Sweet boy. Do you not see how we switch back and forth now? How fluid it is? These roles we play are not so different.” Hannibal caresses Will’s face; he looks so youthful now, but Hannibal wonders if Will might let himself be clean-shaven. “You will never lose my respect, širdie,” he assures Will. “If anything, you only stand to gain.”

“How?”

“After all that we’ve been through together, you still let me in, let me hurt and comfort you in equal measure. You trust me, absolutely, completely; you can never know how greatly I admire you for it. How profoundly I appreciate the gift. There is nothing that could make me think less of you, or treat you as though you were.” Hannibal’s voice is cracking, emotion welling beyond his control. “I may call you boy when we are together, but you are my partner, my _ husband, _ before all.”

Will laughs weakly, sounding as wrecked as Hannibal. He practically burrows into Hannibal’s neck, all clutching hands and damp lashes. “‘Til death do us part?”

“Not if I have any say in the matter.” Hannibal rolls onto his back, pulling Will along with him to pillow his head against Hannibal’s chest.

“Leave it to you to challenge the Grim Reaper to a death match.” His hand drifts down to Hannibal’s belly. “Speaking of dying, how are you feeling?”

“Here, in our palace,” and how wonderful it is to say that,  _ our, _ “there is no pain whatsoever. Elsewhere, I may have overdone it, though I did medicate beforehand.”

In the motel, Will’s hand drifts to lie over the wound; it does the same here in Wolf Trap. Hannibal half expects Will to press in, to increase his discomfort, but he doesn’t. There is no malice in Will’s eyes, only compassion, concern, care. “You don’t wish to hurt me,” he says quietly.

“There’s only one sadist here, Hannibal.” Will smiles, then leans in to kiss him. It’s slow and sleepy, mimicking their meeting lips in the motel bed. Hannibal’s never kissed in his sleep before. The knowledge that they can rest but still meet here in their minds, that neither of them will ever truly be alone again is overwhelming. Hannibal thumbs up Will’s jaw before cradling the back of his head and deepening the kiss.

Will moans into Hannibal’s mouth; his hand travels from Hannibal’s side to the small of his back as he turns Hannibal to face him. He slots a leg between Hannibal’s thighs and weaves them closer together. Distantly, Hannibal hears Will whimper in his sleep, but neither of them pull away. Kissing has never been like this before, where no one is in a rush to move forward. There’s no need to breathe here, so there’s no need to break apart. This isn’t a precursor to sex; it’s only affection, and comfort, and love.

Hannibal hasn’t said it in so many words. Then again, love seems too banal a description for what he and Will share.

It comes to a natural conclusion, but they stay there, forehead to forehead, breathing each other’s breath. Eventually, Will says, “I don’t understand myself.”

“Why is that?”

“All my life, I’ve done what others told me to, what others expected me to do. I was aloof and unsociable, yes, but otherwise I maintained normalcy. Ignored my baser wants. Suppressed my feral nature. All of the traits I buried, you brought to light.” Will pauses to steal another kiss, and Hannibal is pleased that he seeks solace and support from him. “After a lifetime of control, I’m finally free. And I want to give it away, it would seem. I can make my own choices, define my own path, yet…” He steals his eyes from Hannibal. “I don’t know why I’m so quick to take what you’re offering.”

Hannibal kisses Will’s eyelids and revels in the small sigh it elicits. “What is it that I offer you? Tell me, širdie, in your own words.”

“I just...is this going to be a full-time thing? You mentioned--” Will breaks off, and his voice becomes small. “--the lingerie, me wearing it at home. Would that be all the time?”

“As I asked before,” begins Hannibal, “do you want it to be?”

Will’s eyes blink once, twice; he’s bewildered by his own desires. As he always has, Hannibal wishes to liberate him from that fear. “Yes,” he finally says. “But I’ve never...I’ve never really thought about it before. That activity in particular. Being dominated,  _ God, _ I’ve definitely thought about that.”

Hannibal tries to suppress his chuckle, but fails. “I cherish that you let me lead you. What is it that bothers you most?”

“How much I want everything else, I suppose.” Will shakes in his arms; outside of their palace, he merely burrows further into Hannibal. “To be yours far beyond the traditional sense.”

“Would you like me to tell you what I want?” asks Hannibal. “Perhaps it would alleviate your distress and better foster our discussion.”

“Prašau, tėvelis.”

Hannibal’s voice is low and rough. “When we go out on occasion--while I crave social life and mingling with the elite, we must maintain a low profile--but when we do venture out, I want you on my arm, turning heads and inspiring jealous words, classic in your style and impudent in your speech.” Will laughs a little at that, and Hannibal kisses his cheek. “I long to dress you, but I would never ask you to curtail your more endearing personality quirks.”

“And here I thought you hated the rude.”

“Only you shall survive my wrath, mažai žvėris,” says Hannibal. Will giggles boyishly; it’s like music, a melody played for Hannibal, and him alone. “You are ravishing when in your element, dripping in the blood of lesser men, hair wild, face alight. I am in awe of your design, how in control you are when you hunt. In this, Will, I will always follow you. The student shall surpass the master, I am sure of it.”

Will’s face is endearingly pink, making him look even younger. Hannibal is hard-pressed to think about anything other than ravishing him, ruining him. “I’m going to have you shaved, I believe.”

“Where?” He squirms slightly; in the motel, Will hisses as his cock begins to harden against Hannibal’s thigh.

“Not your lovely hair,” says Hannibal, “but everywhere else.” He smirks; his boy’s uncertainty is delicious. “Or perhaps waxed, baring your skin to me entirely, smooth and silken.”

“Oh God.” His eyes flutter closed again, and his breathing picks up.

“I would rub you down with oil to keep you soft,” Hannibal continues. “Think of how much nicer your undergarments will feel with nothing to catch on.”

“What else, Daddy?” Will’s voice is no more than a whisper now. He pulls himself closer to Hannibal to mouth at his neck. This oral fixation must be explored further, Hannibal decides, examined and picked apart like any good specimen should be.

“You asked if you would be wrapped in sensuous garments whenever we were home, and yes, berniuk, you would be. I don’t intend for us to play these roles at all hours of the day; it would become commonplace and dull for you, I think.” Hannibal grasps the back of Will’s neck, his nails digging into the sides, pulling Will’s mouth away from Hannibal’s own neck. The whine Will makes is childish, as if Hannibal has taken away a favorite toy. “But you will be ready for me at all times,” he tells Will.

“How so?” asks Will breathily. He twists his neck, forcing Hannibal to grip him more tightly; were they not in their memory palace, Hannibal would surely be drawing blood.

“With your excellent imagination, I am certain you can guess.” Hannibal leans in as if to kiss Will, taunting him. “Would you like that, mažai žvėris, to be prepared for me to take you whenever and wherever I wished?” Will is panting heavily now, overwhelmed; naturally, Hannibal presses further. “I think sometimes I would simply pull you into my lap to tease and play with you. Can you imagine how frustrated and desperate you would become after a day? After three? A week?”

“I already know you get off on denying me,” and Will is grinning again, though still breathing heavily.

“You enjoy it yourself, cheeky boy,” Hannibal accuses, though with no malice.

Will’s grin turns shy. “Taip, tėvelis.” He averts his eyes and adds, “I hadn’t wanted to say, but I’ve...given that a lot of thought. Denial, I mean. And control.

“You would have me cage and lock you again?”

“May--maybe.”

Eyebrow raised, Hannibal says, “We shall have to discuss that in more depth, boy. I had already considered keeping you in cuffs and thin chains.” Hannibal doesn’t miss the way Will’s pupils go wide; he’s doing more than considering it now. “Shall I go on?”

“Mmm. Kiss me first?”

Hannibal releases his vicious hold on Will’s neck at last. He brushes Will’s hair from his forehead and traces his fingers down his face. One finger beneath his chin, Hannibal tilts Will’s face up, and kisses him. It’s careful, like the youngest of lovers do for the first time, hoping for perfection, to make the next and the next increasingly more worthwhile. Not a cautious kiss, but not a daring one, either, just enough to make Will melt into him and let down any remnants of guard.

The moment is broken reluctantly, and even then Hannibal can’t help but return for another quick taste of Will’s mouth. “I find you innately distracting,” he murmurs. “I have forgotten precisely what else it was that I wanted to say. What would you like to hear, instead?”

Will hesitates, seemingly resistant to the change in conversational direction. “I mentioned that there has to be a line before it can be crossed. Where is it?”

“That depends,” says Hannibal. “Are you asking how much you can get away with, or how often you may enjoy taking punishment?”

“Mostly the latter. Maybe a little of the former.”

Hannibal resumes running his fingers through Will’s hair. He’ll be the first to admit to having an obsession with it, especially now that it has grown longer, falling around his face cherubically. “I am a firm believer in maintenance discipline,” he explains.

“‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’? That sort of thing?”

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth ticks upward. “Something like that. I said I would be content to toy with you on a whim. The same goes for discipline, which is much different than punishment. Punishment is what you suffered earlier, though I think you enjoyed it.”

Will shivers, but he’s still smiling. “I did,” he says. “Very much. And I liked…” He bites his lip; Hannibal knows it’s for his own benefit, this display of youthful nervousness. “I liked not knowing beforehand. I liked not having a way out. It was exciting, though it probably shouldn’t have been.”

“Why not?” Hannibal starts rubbing circles over Will’s back, making him hum as he relaxes further.

“We don’t exactly have a great history where surprises and willful manipulation are involved,” Will reminds him.

“What better time to change that than the present?”

“I suppose.” Will swallows hard. “So you just decide to pull me over and--” He cuts off with a gasp as Hannibal snakes a hand beneath his shirt and begins to scratch lightly over his skin. “--that feels  _ amazing.” _

“This is what I want for us, širdie. For us to be content together, by any means possible.”

Will pushes back into Hannibal’s hand, urging him to scratch harder, so he does. “I like the idea of being accessible to you, of  _ consenting _ to be accessible. But I do want there to be some sort of...delineation, I guess. Like if I want to be normal--well, as normal as we ever are--then I would wear normal clothes. Something along those lines.”

Hannibal nods. “To give you the sense of control you desire; to make it definitively your choice to submit.”

“Exactly.”

“That is acceptable.”

“It damn well better be.”

Hannibal narrows his eyes. “There will be times when your manners and attitude become too much to bear. It is reasonable that you expect to be punished for that when the time is appropriate.”

“I think...I think we should be awake now,” says Will. “Let’s wake up, please.”

In the motel room, their bodies are aligned and pressed together, meeting and moving and grinding. Hannibal would prefer to be there, too. Still, “You must ask properly, berniuk. For the moment, your pleasure belongs to me.”

Will groans. “I always belong to you. Always. No matter what or when or where.”

Tears prick at Hannibal’s eyes. He’s becoming too soft, but he can punish Will for it later. “I must have you,” he says, instead. “Right this minute, recovering or not.”

In the sultriest tone Hannibal has ever heard, Will touches their lips together and says, “Then have me, Daddy.”

Hannibal has never jerked out of the memory palace so quickly, nor has he pounced on another person as vigorously as he does now. The first rays of dawn peek through the broken shades, casting violet shadows across the kitchenette floor. Beneath him, Will is flushed pink as the sky must be now, rosy with anticipation. Hannibal takes the pillow that was under his head just moments ago and tucks it close beside Will’s groin.

“Roll over carefully,” says Hannibal, and he helps Will to move slowly. The pillow elevates his hips, traps Will’s cock beneath his belly, but lets his tortured balls hang free, leaves his striped thighs mostly untouched. Hannibal throws the blankets off the bed and kneels behind him, trying to determine the best position for himself. Finally, he decides to lie down behind Will, still propped up on his knees, looping his arms beneath Will’s thighs to spread his legs, grabbing his ass with both hands.

“Will it hurt, Daddy?” Will asks, voice dripping with sugar and sin.

Hannibal laughs, a deep rumble in his chest. “Oh, I very much doubt it,” and then he parts Will’s cheeks and begins to lay kisses around Will’s hole. He’s rewarded with a series of punched out exhalations as Will tenses and shifts up the bed. Hannibal gentles him, petting him with his hands. “Hold still, darling boy; let Daddy make you feel good.”

“It’s so strange.” Will wriggles, or at least tries to; when his balls rub against the pillow, he cries out.

Hannibal  _ shhhh _ s against his hole, warm puffs of breath that tickle along the puckered skin, distracting Will from his pain. Once Will has settled, Hannibal stretches his neck up to reach the beginning of the cleft of Will’s ass, then slowly kisses his way down.

_ “Oh,” _ says Will, sounding surprised. “Oh, that’s...mmm, that’s nice.”

“You have never been touched like this?” Hannibal tries to sound surprised himself, though he isn’t, at all.

Will’s face shifts against his pillow, a scratchy rustling as he nuzzles in. “No. Never.” He sighs sweetly as Hannibal keeps kissing him tenderly, intimately, up and down, over and over. “I feel like jelly,” Will mumbles. “Could let you do that all day.”

Withdrawing, Hannibal bites at a cheek, delighting in Will’s shocked giggle. He pushes himself up on his hands to mouth up Will’s spine, speaking softly as he goes. “That is an option, berniuk. To have you on your knees, holding yourself apart for me, making the most wonderful little sounds around your gag.” Hannibal can feel Will’s breathing pick up, lips moving along with the inhalations that arch Will’s back. “Or perhaps I would like to hear you reduced to incoherency, buckled into the straightjacket you seem to crave, wrapped up like a gift I refuse to open.”

_ “Jesus _ , Hannib--oh  _ fuck,” _ and Will dissolves into groans as Hannibal reaches his neck, beginning to bite and suck along the side. It would be so easy to latch on, to tear out Will’s throat, but the thought of doing so makes Hannibal’s erection flag. Killing Will is no longer part of the fantasy, and he is grateful for that.

Deeming Will sufficiently warmed up, Hannibal retraces his steps, meandering down Will’s back, resettling himself on elbows and knees behind him. This is killing his side, but Hannibal ignores the dull stabbing ache. It can be dealt with later.

Hannibal laves a slow line down Will’s crack, ghosting over his hole in favor of pressing the tip of his tongue against his perineum. Without warning, he lets his teeth gently scrape over Will’s sack, relishing his confused shout. Hannibal does the same to Will’s hole, nipping and licking around it until Will is rubbing himself shamelessly against the pillow. The licks begin to dip inside Will just barely, only to tease him into completely unclenching his muscles, making Will writhe and wince all at once, too sensitive from the abuse for the friction to be solely pleasurable. Hannibal can only imagine how wonderfully it must sting, like being whipped all over again

And still, Will begs for more. “Prašau, tėvelis,” he says, “Daddy, Daddy,  _ please.” _

It’s too much for Hannibal to bear, the way Will smells of his own soap, the clean taste of him, the warmth of his body that he pleads for Hannibal to dive into. At last, Hannibal points his tongue, and does just that, begins to ease his tongue inside Will’s hole, fucking him shallowly. His own cock is unbearably hard, the raw, unrestrained, nonsensical noises Will makes almost enough to undo him on their own. Deeper and deeper Hannibal pushes until his tongue can stroke along the inner walls, against the quivering muscles that stretch apart for his mouth, desperate to pull him in.

No one will ever touch Will’s insides as Hannibal has. It stokes the constant possessive flame in his gut into wildfire, and he dips into Will’s hole faster, growling and snarling as Will keens and sobs his name, rocking his hips between Hannibal’s mouth and the pillow as Hannibal spits into his hand and strokes his own cock to the rhythm Will’s set.

“Wanna play with my nipples,” Will manages to call out. “Please, let me play with my nipples!” He sounds so wanton, so  _ demanding, _ and Hannibal loves it, will love turning Will’s ass red for it later, for his greed and insatiable lust.

But for now, Hannibal pulls back, ignoring Will’s sniveling and how he rears back for Hannibal’s mouth once deprived of it. Hannibal sucks on his finger, makes it as spit-slick as Will’s hole, then slips the tip of it inside. “Do it, beautiful boy. Play with yourself for Daddy.” Will’s face turns into the pillow as he pushes his hands under his chest, and he screams his pleasure, pulling and twisting at his nipples as Hannibal keeps working a finger inside of him, dry enough to feel the drag of it.

“You like that too much,” Hannibal says, fucking into his fist as he fucks into Will. “We will see how much you enjoy it when I clamp them tight and torment them, flicking my fingers across the captured buds. How you will beg me to stop until I tire of your wailing and remove your voice, then keep going as long as I desire. And  _ oh, _ Will, that might be a long, long time.”

For as much noise as he’s made thus far, Will comes soundlessly, tensing and shaking all over, hips bucking and stuttering until he slumps all at once. Hannibal pulls his finger out too fast to be enjoyable, and Will whines brokenly when he does, but Hannibal needs that hand.

He cups his sack in his hand and presses his fingers against his perineum, pushes and rubs at it. His fist moves over the whole length of him now, letting his foreskin glide back and forth by the smallest of increments, aided by the precum that’s collected there at the tip. Hannibal throws his head back and pushes into the tight circle of his fingers one last time before coming across Will’s back in thick streaks. Exhausted, he sits back on his heels, then leans over Will again, licking up his spend. It’s been too long since Hannibal was able to consume himself, though Will’s quietly moaned appreciation at being cleaned is its own reward.

Will, throws back a hand, seeking Hannibal’s; when he finds it, he pulls, urging Hannibal to come up to lie beside him. Hannibal does, falling to his side, still gripping Will’s hand. He holds it to his mouth, too worn out to kiss it. When he’s recovered enough to be able, Hannibal nuzzles Will’s hand, instead.

“That…” Will flops his face back out of the pillow, eyes still closed, seeking out Hannibal’s face with his nose. Laughing, still out of breath, Hannibal nudges it with his own, and Will smiles in approval, sated and smug. “That was a good conversation,” he says.

“Was it?”

“Mmhmm.” He scoots himself over, but doesn’t accomplish much beyond shifting the pillow beneath his hips. “Arm, please,” he says. When Hannibal doesn’t immediately comply, Will jerks his hand away, grabs Hannibal’s wrist, and maneuvers Hannibal’s arm across his back.

“Demanding little boy, aren’t you?”

“I think you like me naughty.”

“I think,” Hannibal says, “that you court danger too eagerly.” But Will’s yawning again, and neither of them have ever cared much about trouble finding them, and Hannibal’s sure it can be dealt with when it does. Sleep comes easily, and they make their way back to Wolf Trap once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> -mažai žvėris: my little beast  
> -širdie: my heart  
> -berniuk: my boy  
> -taip: yes  
> -prašau: please


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the triumphant return of Chad Eastwick!

Chad hasn’t heard from the Lecter-Grahams in several weeks, and he isn’t sure if that’s good or not. On the one hand, it means they’re too busy to bother him; on the other, it means they’re too busy to bother him, and God only knows what they’re doing. He hopes each other. It certainly relieves Chad of the responsibility of letting two known murderers free to gallivant around the globe.

He knows better than to contact the authorities. Besides, Chad’s always kept his word. Most of his promises are currently to Roberta--escorting her to Sunday services, coming over to have tea twice a week, helping her check her email.

Going to church with her is definitely the hardest of his Roberta-themed tasks. Chad has never been a religious man, but he had hoped that getting shouted at from a pulpit might persuade him to do the right thing and turn in Hannibal and Will.

Figures he would start attending during the sermon series about forgiveness.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Chad is honestly concerned by how much he wants to seek Jesus just to shake some sense into him. And Luke was a physician; he should have _known better._ Granted, Chad suspects that neither God nor the universe had ever expected the force of nature that is Hannibal Lecter.

The Sunday after that covered Proverbs--“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” Chad’s never liked proverbs of any kind, Biblical or otherwise; he’s always found them trite and simplistic. They can’t possibly cover every situation. The Lecter-Grahams are undoubtedly strife-stirrers, but Chad knows love when he sees it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been as successful in his work as he has been. Hannibal and Will would literally do--and have done--anything for each other. It’s beautiful, in the way volcanoes spewing lava and destroying the countryside is beautiful.

More from Proverbs, and Chad began to feel personally attacked by the preacher. “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” Chad hasn’t the slightest _clue_ of how to start unpacking that, but it _feels_ important. _They want to be loved,_ he thinks, _if only by each other._ Then again, they had reached out to Chad. Initially to kill him, but that seems trivial now. Hannibal had spoken of Chad being their friend; maybe that means they won’t plot his demise.

What it comes down to is whether or not Chad wishes to accept their friendship.

Chad supposes he could ask Elaine for her opinion, but it’s unnecessary. He already knows she’d be all for it, if only so she could press him for details as fodder for her fanfiction. Discussing the sex life of middle-aged serial killers isn’t particularly something Chad is interested in doing, especially with his seventeen-year-old niece. He’s a good uncle, yes, but Chad is nowhere _near_ that accommodating.

That leaves Roberta, which is why he’s knocking on her door at two o’clock on Monday afternoon with a bouquet of orange and yellow chrysanthemums. Chad knows she’ll have a vase to put it in; little old ladies always seem to have at least two vases inexplicably lying around. Roberta, being a very traditional elderly auntie, will probably have five.

She pulls open the door to the house she’s lived in for the past sixty years; it creaks a little as it moves, much like Roberta. Her skin’s as warm as her personality, a rich sepia, a color word he only knows thanks to a childhood filled with Crayola products. Roberta is wrinkled, but sharp-featured, like the side of a canyon--weathered, but strong. She could tell Chad that she’d live for another eighty years, and he’d believe her easily.

“Well hello there, handsome,” Roberta says, closing the door again briefly to undo the chain. “What brings you to my door today?”

Chad grins. “Had to bring some flowers to my favorite lady.”

“Oh! Isn’t that wonderful of you?” She smiles, mouth full of pearly-white teeth that gleam against her skin. “Let’s get these in some water. Come on in, honey,” and Roberta turns away from the door, never doubting that he’d follow her inside. “I can’t reach my vases anymore.”

He closes and latches the door behind him. Roberta’s decor is only unusual in the fact that it still looks like a spread in _Good Housekeeping_ magazine from the early sixties. She also has a fascination with doilies; Roberta’s already bestowed him with several, lace tatted by hand. Inez from across the street comes over and helps Roberta clean once a week. Apparently, if Roberta gives you doilies, she’s decided you’re going to stay.

“I have twenty-seven,” said Inez when they spoke after church. “What the hell does a person do with twenty-seven doilies?” Chad shrugged, quietly wondering if he could get away to sending his to the Lecter-Grahams as a housewarming gift.

Which reminds him of why he’s here. Before Chad can bring up the subject discretely, Roberta says, “Now there are only three reasons for a man to give you flowers.” She points up at the cabinet with the vases; Chad notes that there are six. “One is when he’s courtin’ you, tryin’ to impress your daddy, and mine’s been dead for almost fifty years. Two is when--the white one, handsome, the milk glass with the little bumps.”

“This one?”

“There you go.” She unwraps the flowers in the sink and starts trimming the stems with her kitchen shears. “Now two is when he says he’s sorry, and you’ve not a thing to apologize for. Three means a man needs somethin’.” Roberta takes the vase from Chad and fills it with water from the tap. “What is it that you need?”

Chad leans up against her kitchen counter. “Advice.”

“Now what on earth could Chad Eastwick need help with?” She starts arranging the chrysanthemums, stripping the leaves as she goes.

“I...I have these friends,” he starts. “More like acquaintances, but I think they could _be_ friends. One of them, at least. Not so sure about his husband.”

Roberta nods, dropping another handful of leaves in the sink. She’s never really given her position on homosexuality, which would usually bother Chad. But Roberta never says anything _against_ it, either, and she doesn’t act uncomfortable when Chad talks about Elaine, either.

“So what’s the matter?”

He takes a deep breath, then lets it out through his nose. “They’re not...good people. Not in the traditional sense.” Chad rubs a hand over his face. “Maybe not in _any_ sense. They’re kind of...on the run.”

“From the law?” Her tone of voice remains conversational, as if they’re in line at the grocery store, talking about the weather.

“From a lot of things, but primarily, yeah.”

Roberta sighs as she puts the last chrysanthemum in the vase. “Do they still do bad? Break the law?”

“I think so,” says Chad. Roberta gives him the eye. “Okay, yes, definitely.”

“Mmhmm. Take a seat, handsome,” she says, pointing at the kitchen table.

Chad pulls out a chair for her first, then does as he’s told. He knows better than to not listen to a look like that.

“So,” says Roberta, settling back in her chair, “I’m gonna guess that you’ll be leaving out some details?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They stare at each other. Chad has the uncomfortable feeling of being seen into, of being transparent. “Well,” she finally says, “go on.”

“Like I said,” he continues, “they’re not good people, but they’re good together. And I think the husband listens to my--”

“Honey, you’re gonna have to give them names. Even if it’s just Bert and Ernie.”

Chad has the sudden, hysterical mental image of Hannibal in a vertically-striped v-neck over a white turtleneck. “Alright. Bert and Ernie it is.”

“Good.” Roberta smiles again, reaching out to pat Chad’s hand across the table.

“Anyway, Ernie is the one who doesn’t freak me out...quite as much, and Bert is a scary pretentious dick. But Bert _listens_ to Ernie, _dotes_ on Ernie. He went to jail for him.”

“I’m guessing Ernie helped Bert escape.”

 _If the Children’s Television Workshop only knew…_ “He did. It’s...complicated.”

Roberta snorts. “I watch soap operas. Don’t get much more complicated than that.”

“Bert’s killed a lot of other muppets. I mean, a _lot_ of muppets. And he kind of framed Ernie for it at one point. But they made up, and now everyone thinks they’re dead.”

“...Alright, now that’s kinda complicated.” She pauses. “Is this one of those mob things?”

“I wish,” says Chad. His leg bounces up and down underneath the table. “I think the word ‘psychopath’ was juggled around more than once. But it’s not that simple.” He leans in for more impact--Roberta knows what it’s like to love and lose; her Daphne’s name was Danny--and that’s when he realizes that he _wants_ her to approve, that he _needs_ her to say it’s okay, that it _is_ okay to be friends with insane globe-trotting cannibals.

He never should’ve agreed to spellcheck Elaine’s fanfic.

“Bert loves Ernie,” Chad continues, “in every permutation and connotation of that word. Deeply, madly, passionately, viciously, violently. And Ernie loves Bert just the same. They’d die for each other, and probably will.”

“And you want to hitch your car to a train that’s gonna derail?” Roberta shakes her head, not unkindly, but confusedly. “How did you even meet these people, Chad?”

Chad winces. “They kind of broke into my house.” She squints at him, opens her mouth to respond, but Chad keeps going. “Look, I wasn’t keen on them at first, for obvious reasons, but going to church with you has kind of...I don’t know, made me feel differently. Not about what they do--I _abhor_ what they do--but about being friends with them. I’m not a religious man, Roberta, but listening to those sermons--”

Roberta holds up her hand. “You’ve forgiven them. They had a reason to do what they did to you?” Chad hesitates, then nods. “Forgivin’ is a hard thing to do. You’re a godly man, Chad, whether you subscribe to the newsletter or not.”

“I don’t feel all that godly.”

“Jesus palled around with criminals. Some reformed, some not. You see good in _them,_ if not how they live. You think they can change?”

“Absolutely not,” he tells her. “No chance of it.”

“Well,” says Roberta, “I think if you’ve forgiven them, and you want to protect what they have together between them, and you’re at peace with that choice…” Roberta stops, lost in thought--or, if Chad is reading her correctly, memories. “You need to do what’s right, what you believe is right. And if that’s a decision you can live with, honey? Then you commit to it.”

“Okay,” Chad says, trying to regulate his breathing. “Okay.”

“But don’t tell me what Bert and Ernie are up to,” and she laughs, and Chad feels oddly at peace with the whole situation. He’s always lived at the corner of morally gray and ethically ambivalent. No need to pack up and move to a new street now.

Besides, he’d miss Roberta. Not his basement, though. That basement can go straight to hell as far as Chad’s concerned.

Hopefully, he won’t be following it.

 

* * *

 

Elaine’s always been a handful, but Chad enjoys her special brand of chaos. His sister has never known what to do with her daughter--”She’s too much like you,” Maggie would say every time they spoke on the phone. “Mom and Pop never could figure you out, either.” Chad has always been supportive of Maggie letting her find her own way in the world, whatever that may be.

“Oh,” Maggie said once, “perfect. She can grow up and be a criminal like you.”

Chad could practically hear Elaine’s eyes roll on the other side of the phone. “At least I won’t be boring and let a cubicle crush my hopes and dreams,” she replied, and Maggie had very quickly found a reason to end the call. It was always the same conversation--predictable, just like poor Maggie.

Elaine, though. Chad never knew what to expect from Elaine, and he loved her for it. He and Daphne had never been able to have children, had often spoke of adopting her, though they both knew it would never happen. So instead, they doted on her; once Daphne passed, Chad spoiled Elaine even more. He paid for her to attend a private school, sent her to camps and lessons and seminars. Chad was certain she’d end up with an art scholarship, should she choose to go to college.

Still, Elaine had always been attracted to the criminal element, the seedy side of life. She found beauty in ugliness. Granted, she’s also scared her school counselors more times than Chad cares to count, but as long as she’s only painting the macabre and not amassing a kill count outside of Bioware games, he refuses to worry.

Maybe that explained his own blasé attitude about Will and Hannibal. Chad’s never been sure if he was influencing Elaine, or she was influencing him. Regardless, her obsession with the Murder Husbands was hardly a surprise to Chad. Despite their medium, they were artists, too.

She bounces off the MegaBus, backpack slung over she shoulder. Elaine has as much of her short blonde hair as she can get pulled back into a ponytail; ripped jeans, flannel, a fitted tank top--Elaine lived in her own personal uniform. Chad would be lucky if he could get her to dress up for _Hamilton;_ the closest she ever came to put-together was her school uniform.

Her smile is brilliant and infectious, full of energy and spunk. Elaine doesn’t wave when she sees her uncle, merely tips her head in greeting and makes her way over to the car.

“Hey, stranger,” she says, opening the passenger side door and flopping herself in. Her backpack gets unceremoniously dumped in the back seat. “What’s the haps?”

“Same old, same old.” Chad gets in cautiously; he half expects her to pop behind the wheel with no warning and insist on driving his hybrid. “Just getting by.”

“Meet anyone interesting lately?”

Chad coughs and turns the key in the ignition. “Let’s talk about you first. And put on your seat belt.”

Elaine full-body stretches in her seat. “Aw, c’mon, Uncle Chad. Do you want to live forever?”

“I’m kind of fond of existence. Particularly yours.”

“Don’t be a Maggie.”

“Hey, she’s your mother, not mine,” says Chad. “If anyone’s gonna be her, it’ll be you. Now put on your goddamn seat belt.”

“If I put it on,” Elaine says--and here comes the bargain, there’s _always_ a bargain--”then you have to listen to me prattle about the cannibaes.”

Chad licks his lips and tilts his head, so she clicks the belt into place, and he pulls out of the parking space. “What kind of misadventures have you gotten them into this time?”

“I’m writing a sci-fi AU,” she tells him excitedly. “Hannibal’s a fictional sorcerer, and Will reads the comic books about him.”

“...Oh. Well that’s...creative.”

“Why thank you,” Elaine says. Chad glance over; her smug grin is always a work of art. “They really are perfect for each other, y’know. In any universe, any situation. Even if they were nice people, or less abusive, or less--”

“They’re alive.” It’s out of Chad’s mouth before he can stop himself. He can feel the blood drain from his face, and grips the steering wheel as hard as he can.

Elaine shrugs. “I mean, that’s a popular theory, and I think so, too but--”

“No,” says Chad, “they--” He shakes his head. _What am I doing?_ “Never mind. It’s not important.”

But it’s too late; Chad’s already hooked Elaine’s attention. “Wait. Are you saying you _know_ they’re alive? Like. Personally?” But he can’t bring himself to answer. Elaine has her whole life ahead of her; she doesn’t need to risk pissing off a monster in a suit. Unfortunately, Elaine knows Chad too well and understands what he says when he isn’t saying anything. “Holy fuck,” she mumbles. “Holy fucking mother of _fuck.”_

“That’s…” He purses his mouth, glances in the rear view mirror, anxious. “That’s actually a pretty good summation of the past two weeks.”

“You have _got_ to tell me what happened.”

Chad scoffs. “Like hell I do.”

“Come _on,_ Uncle Chad,” she whines. “I need deets like yesterday.”

“You don’t need…’deets’, Lainey.”

Elaine’s grabbing at his arm; Chad tries to shake her off without swerving the car. “Is my fanfic accurate? What about my meta?”

“I don’t know,” he says, exasperated. “How much porn have you written?”

Dead silence from the other side of the car. “None?”

“Don’t bullshit me,” says Chad affectionately. “There’s no way you haven’t written tres equis. I already know you only ask me to look at your spelling because you want me to read your fic.”

Elaine sighs dramatically. “You caught me.”

“I would have felt weird reading your explicit stuff before."

A beat, and then, “Before what?”

 _In for a dime, in for a dollar._ “Before they had sex in your great-grandma’s chair.”

The noise Elaine makes is supersonic, but at least it’s short-lived. “Was it kinky? Please say it was kinky.”

“Probably,” Chad says. “I wouldn’t know, Lainey, it’s not like I _watched.”_

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I was knocked out in my basement!”

Elaine gasps. “Okay, now you are absolutely _obligated_ to tell me everything.”

Chad slumps, keeps his eyes on the road, and starts from the beginning.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Chad convinces Elaine to wear a dress, though he’s not precisely a fan of it. The burgundy is striking against her pale skin, but it’s too tight, and her heels are too high, and her tights are too...plaid.

Teens and adults alike stare at her--not unkindly, though that would be an improvement as far as Chad’s concerned--as they walk from the hotel to the Richard Rogers Theatre, and Elaine revels in it. She did her hair, and put on makeup, and Chad is terrified of letting her out of his sight. A woman stops them to complement Elaine’s expertly-winged eyeliner; Chad tries not to put on his Concerned Uncle face, but knows he fails miserably.

Even the gentleman at the box office is charmed by her, a regular femme fatale. Chad tries not to think about his niece as a future black widow, but given their conversations about Hannibal and Will for the past three days, it seems an inevitability at this point. _At least she’ll be successful in a career she enjoys,_ he thinks.

Chad looks at their tickets as they walk away. “Orchestra? I bought front mezzanine; it was all they had left.”

“Don’t look at me,” says Elaine. “I didn’t flirt _that_ hard.”

“Then what--” He’s interrupted by a man clearing his throat behind him. Chad glances back, then turns so quickly that he nearly loses his balance.

The man on the left is wearing a black turtleneck, nearly sheer, just thick enough to pass muster for polite company. His curly hair is tamer, softer than the first time they met, and his eyes are clear, not a shred of nerves to be found. He’s wearing linen pants the same shade as Elaine’s dress, as skin-clinging as it, too. Even his shoes match Elaine’s, though they’re black and red brogues and not ankle-straps. What’s most striking is the necklace, for lack of better words, that he’s wearing. It reminds Chad of military lanyards, gold beads and pearls running in two strands from shoulder to shoulder, then draping over those same shoulders in an elaborate cap sleeve.

As far as the man on the right, he’s wearing a suit, again, though much better fitted than the one before. It’s that same taunting shade of burgundy--and Chad is honestly beginning to feel like the odd man out at this party--with a silver and black tattersall plaid. Another paisley tie and another paisley handkerchief; shiny black Oxfords and shiny black chopsticks in his bun.

The Lecter-Grahams, but with a twist. Hannibal exudes ownership; as for Will, he looks _owned,_ and quite happy about it, to boot.

“We took the liberty of upgrading your seats,” says Hannibal. Chad looks over at Elaine; to her credit, she’s remaining calm and composed, only slightly tightening her hold on her clutch.

“I insisted,” Will tells them. He looks at Elaine and winks, like _he_ knows that _she_ knows. “It wouldn’t do for the four of us to be here on the same day and not insure that we run into each other.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Hannibal says. “Will was very persuasive.”

Chad chuckles, resigning himself to his fate, whatever that may be. Besides, he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t intrigued by this turn of events. “I’m sure he was.”

“You must be Elaine Piersen.” And Hannibal is as charming as she is, taking her delicate hand in his, kissing the back of it like a perfect gentleman. “Your photographs do you no justice.”

She smiles, imperfect teeth framed by perfect lipstick. “You must be Rupert Buoy, and neither do yours.”

Will and Chad turn to each other, staring over Elaine’s and Hannibal’s hands, and Chad knows he looks just as shocked as Will does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed a chapter chock full of original characters! :D


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had intended to post this chapter earlier, but then my country's political system imploded. My goal is to still complete this fic by the end of November--we're in the home stretch now!--but, considering I am essentially mourning the end of American democracy, I make no guarantees.

To say that Hannibal was immediately taken with Elaine would be an understatement. Will knows that Hannibal enjoys his role as a gentleman; while he may be desirous of others regardless of gender, he prefers the social acceptability and public anonymity afforded by heterosexual partnership. It doesn’t bother Will in the slightest--he knows who gets taken home at the end of the night, after all. Besides, watching Hannibal play a part is satisfying, like being invited to a personal production in a theatre of their own making.

It isn’t even as though Hannibal has to act, honestly; the man oozes charm and respectability. Then again, so does Elaine, considering how easily she meets Hannibal toe-to-toe on the carpet. Will wonders if this is how Hannibal was at seventeen, too, worldly and well-spoken and wise in all the wrong ways. He and Chad seem to only be along for the ride.

Chad tries to sit next to Elaine when they take their seats, earlier than Hannibal would typically like, but Will is quicker. He smirks, feeling how uneasy Chad is, being separated from his beloved niece by two merciless killers. To his credit, Chad doesn’t show it, merely sits down and begins thumbing through the Playbill.

Will lets him; they can talk later. Right now, Hannibal and Elaine are more fun to listen to. He crosses his legs and tries not to think about the possible penalties for eavesdropping.

“You are an artist?” Hannibal asks. Her hand still rests on his arm from when Hannibal had insisted on escorting her into the theatre.

“I like to think so,” says Elaine, “though I’m hardly egotistical enough to believe I have nothing to learn.”

“Are there any among us who does not?”

Elaine laughs; it’s melodic, deeper than Will would have expected. “Depends on who you ask, Mr. Buoy.”

“Very true. At this moment, however, I am asking you.” And this is new, Hannibal launching into polite interrogation right from the start. He must be more impressed than Will thought, or--more likely--Hannibal has something up his sleeve. Will hopes it’s non-lethal.

“I have this one instructor, Dr. Reynolds? He’s such a conceited little fuc--idiot. Sorry, I know it’s rude to curse.”

Amusement rolls off of Hannibal in waves. Will risks glancing over, thinking to check Hannibal for muscular tension, but catches Elaine’s deep brown eyes instead. She smiles at him pointedly; if Hannibal didn’t know Will was listening before, he certainly does now. “Quite alright. I have spent enough time among artists to understand disdain for traditional conventions of conversation.”

“Still,” Elaine says, “I’ll try and stay G-rated.”

“I would prefer you do no such thing.” Hannibal presses his foot against Will’s, an unspoken reassurance; he likely thinks that Will is concerned that she’ll press her luck. Will is happy to be told that Elaine’s candle is far from being snuffed out, though he was certain of that already. “Now,” continues Hannibal, “do tell me what makes this Dr. Reynolds a ‘conceited little fuck’.”

Elaine laughs, again, more loudly this time; it frightens Will a bit, how used to hearing that laugh he could become. “He just thinks he’s above reproach, is all. That his shit doesn’t stink, but trust me, it does. I know I’m not an art critic, and I’m young, and the whole idea of art is self-expression, but if that’s the self he’s trying to express? He should probably just stay quiet.”

“I take it Dr. Reynolds thinks poorly of your work.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” Elaine crosses her ankles; her right foot bounces a few times before she regains her poise.  _ God, she’s impressive, _ Will thinks. “He thinks I’m too graphic for my age. Too lewd.” She leans in and adds in a whisper, “Too visceral.”

Hannibal turns his body toward her further. “Is that so?”

“He’s one of those white guys that give white guys a bad name. Misogynistic prick who thinks European art is the end all, be all, you know? Dr. Reynolds said that the only reason I’m enamored with Frida Kahlo is because it’s the hip thing to do right now, that I’ll grow out of it and realize there’re better artists.” Elaine’s voice grows sharper, crueler as she continues. “I like Kahlo because of her dedication to self-examination, her eye for creative anatomy,” she continues, emphasizing the last two words.

“And you are a fan of this...creative anatomy?” A useless question, and all four of them know it.

“I mostly take inspiration from las artistas posmodernas mexicanas, sure, but they take a lot of inspiration from the muralist period, from  artesanía.” Will hears her seat squeak slightly as she relaxes back into it. “My father’s father was a wood sculptor from Oaxaca. My art is kind of a way of reconnecting with my roots.”

“Which, in turn, intimidates your professor, calling his own artistic appropriation into question.”

“Exactly. And he doesn’t think that the artists I like are ‘real’ artists. Dr. Lakra, for instance. He’s a tattooist. His canvas is the human body, whether real or illustrated.”

Will can practically feel Hannibal’s vibrating in excitement. He closes his eyes to quickly pop into the mind palace. Sure enough, Hannibal is out on the veranda, looking out over the labyrinth of art committed to memory. Elaine stands next to him, though she surely doesn’t know where Hannibal has taken her in his mind.

Hannibal realizes Will has joined him. He holds out his hand to Will, and Will takes it, letting himself be pulled into Hannibal’s mental embrace. “I am unacquainted with his work,” Hannibal murmurs against Will’s temple; back in the theatre, Will’s skin tingles. “In fact, I must confess to being unfamiliar with tattoo artistry in its entirety.”

Chad clears his throat beside him. He’s hesitant to leave the veranda--

_ “We should spend more time here,” Will tells Hannibal. “You’ve never shown me.” _

_ “Yet you knew where to find me.” Hannibal pulls Will into his arms, Will’s back to his front, still maintaining rapt attention outside to Elaine’s excited chattering. _

_ He leans back against Hannibal’s broad chest. “I wandered in here once by accident, looking for your Baltimore office.” _

_ “An easy mistake.” Hannibal lifts his hand, brushing his fingertips down Will’s neck. “I will bring you back here tonight, širdie.” _

\--but Will wants to speak with him. Chad’s a curiosity, to be sure . The only other person who wouldn’t turn them in would likely be Bedelia, but she’s hardly going to matter in a week or two.

“So,” he begins, leaning into Chad’s personal space, “how have  _ you _ been?”

“Embroiled in an ethical, existential crisis,” says Chad. “I’ve had to resort to finding God in the desert to extricate myself from it.”

“Did you?”

“Haven’t found the desert yet, so no.”

Will smiles broadly. Chad reminds him so much of his old self--pithy, malleable, lost. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

Chad closes his Playbill, rolls it up and holds it in a loose fist. “I couldn’t disappoint Elaine. It’s all she wanted for her birthday.” He looks at Will, bespectacled, thick clear plastic frames that slightly magnify his practiced blank gaze. “I wasn’t intending to tell her about you and Rupert--which, actually, remind me of your name?”

“Adam,” Will tells him. “Same surname, of course.”

“Of course,” says Chad, faking remembrance. He’s an excellent actor, though that’s to be expected, given Chad’s line of work. If Will didn’t know better, he’d assume Chad wasn’t frightened in the least. “Adam. Anyway, I wasn’t going to tell Lainey, but it...she’s very good at getting information out of me. Excellent at prompting.”

Will huffs a laugh. “Sounds familiar.”

“I didn’t want to put her in harm’s way, though. And now you two have shown up to force my hand. If I’d known you would be here, I would’ve suddenly come down with a horrible case of MRSA. Maybe poisoned myself. Anything to keep her away from you and Rupert.” Chad taps his Playbill against his thigh and quickly adds, “No offense.”

“Oh, none taken. It’s a valid fear, an understandable hesitance. But trust me, Chad,” and Will reaches out to still Chad’s hand before the sound of paper on khaki drives him crazier. “I can already tell that Rupert has no intention of hurting her. He finds her very interesting.”  Hannibal  _ hmm _ s quietly in agreement.

“That might actually be more frightening than you all wanting to make lunch out of her, to be perfectly honest.”

“Relax,” says Will, “neither one of you are on the menu. We like you too much.”

Confusion clouds Chad’s eyes. “I still don’t understand why. I mean…” He sighs and thumbs at the wedding ring on his hand. “I’m a semi-retired crook. Good at what I do, what I did, but still, a crook. Lainey’s got the aptitude to follow me into the business. She’s certainly not boring. Has the whole world at her feet.”

“You’re hardly boring. For instance, you have dead cannibals as friends.” Chad is tense all over, and the lights are going down in the theatre. Will puts a calming hand on the back of Chad’s neck, anyway, absentmindedly rubs at the muscles there.  “Relax. You’ll draw attention to us. I don’t think anyone wants that, do you?”

Chad’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “No. But I don’t want you two influencing her, either.”

Will chuckles and says, “It’s a bit late for that.” He kneads Chad’s neck harder, almost gripping it.

_ “What are you playing at over there, berniuk?” Hannibal asks, jerking Will back out onto the veranda. _

_ “Keeping him cool under pressure,  _ _ tėvelis _ _ ,” Will assures him. He loves the possessive hold Hannibal’s taken him in, one hand gripping his throat, the other his cock and balls. Will tilts his hips into Hannibal’s palm. _

_ “You’re so greedy,” says Hannibal, and he squeezes Will roughly. “How could I not question your intentions?” _

_ “I would--” Will hesitates, and Hannibal flattens his hand against Will’s throat. _

_ “What,  _ _ mažai žvėris? What would you do?” _

_ Will turns his head as much as he is able, enough to nose against Hannibal’s neck. “I would let you share me, Daddy.” _

_ Hannibal’s breath grows heavy, and Will can feel the hard outline of his cock against his ass.  _ _ “I don’t know that I would be able to.” _

_ “And I don’t believe for a second that you wouldn’t want to be in the audience.” Will turns his face away, acting bored. “Or maybe you’d rather us both be in front of one.” _

_ “We will speak of this later,” Hannibal says.  _ _ He sounds hard and unfeeling, but Will knows he has Hannibal pegged, intrigued. _

_ “Probably while you turn my ass red, right?” _

_ Will hisses as Hannibal bites at the shell of his ear. “Insatiable boy.” _

Drawing his right hand away from Chad, who has relaxed somewhat, Will lays his left on Hannibal’s thigh, palm upward in supplication. Hannibal grabs Will’s wrist and holds it, instead.

 

* * *

 

Predictably, Chad murmurs along to “You’ll Be Back”, Elaine animatedly mouths the words to “Yorktown”, and Hannibal sobs during “Dear Theodosia”. Will isn’t surprised that he’s the only person in their quartet to maintain composure during the first act. He only hopes he can keep it up through the second act, but “Burn” gets under Will’s skin every time.

Will has never told Hannibal why. He doesn’t intend to, either. Not tonight; that isn’t the story to be told this evening, though Will is more than willing to raise a glass to all four of them.

It’s strange, how quickly Will’s grown attached to Chad and Elaine, especially considering he had fully intended to kill Chad and take his dog. He still hasn’t decided whether or not to liberate Inheritance from her master; it will likely depend on what care Chad has secured for her while he was away. Will makes a mental note to tell Hannibal that they’ll be dropping back by Chad’s home before they escape the country. He’s sure all he’ll need to do is bat his eyelashes and deploy the sad puppy face.

And that’s something else Will couldn’t have predicted, how willingly and happily he would adapt to the role of sugar baby. He  _ loves _ Hannibal catering to his whims; it’s attention Will never knew he craved. Hannibal is just as likely to surprise him with gifts, though many of them are edible. Tiny boxes of chocolate that Hannibal sweetly hand feeds him after sweetly torturing him; sticky cinnamon streusel at breakfast, Will feeding himself but still accepting bites from Hannibal.

“You’re trying to fatten me up,” Will accused him. Hannibal just smirked and fed him another piece, eyes lighting up as Will sucked the sugar off of his fingers.

Will already knew that Hannibal had excellent, albeit eccentric, taste in clothes. He had been afraid of being drug to fittings for perfectly-tailored clothing, and Hannibal had said that fitted suits were in Will’s future, but the clothes Hannibal had provided him so far had been waiting for him at the previous hotel in Newark. Nothing’s been given to him yet at their hotel on Broadway and 28th beyond what he’s wearing now.

He thinks that he’ll steal Hannibal away to a secluded corner somewhere during the intermission, maybe to ask about their plans tonight that Hannibal has been, thus far, unwilling to divulge. Before Will can say anything, however, Elaine reaches over Hannibal to grab his arm.

“Come on,” she says, “I need accompaniment to the ladies.”

“You may not have noticed, but I’m not a lady.” He laughs a little and adds, “I’m no gentleman, either.”

Elaine keeps tugging, and Will practically trips over Hannibal on the way out of their row. He looks back, and Hannibal isn’t even paying attention to them, perfectly happy to terrify Chad. “Yeah,” Elaine finally concedes as they make their way toward the exit, “I know you aren’t, but you’re so pretty that no one would dare to throw you out.”

“Why do you need me to come with you though?”

She grins at him over her shoulder. “Don’t you want to protect my honor?”

“No honor among thieves,” says Will, but he follows along, anyway.  Other theatre patrons stare at him as they walk; before their fall from the cliff, it would’ve bothered Will. He didn’t even like going out in public with Molly. Too many eyes, watching, judging. Now, Will is strangely proud; he doesn’t even worry that someone might recognize him, turn him in. No one’s looking at his face, after all. The necklace has made sure of that.

Elaine doesn’t head toward the bathrooms. Instead, she’s pulling Will toward a roped-off area, down a hallway, and to an old door, whereupon she drops his hand and opens her clutch.

“This doesn’t look like the ladies lounge,” says Will.

“I was flirting with the dude at the box office earlier,” Elaine tells him, pulling a lockpick out of her purse. “There was a map hanging behind him, and it had this area on it. On the way in, I saw that it was closed off, so obviously,” and she stops to fiddle with the lock on the door.

“Obviously?”

“Ah, there we go!” Elaine tosses the lockpick over her shoulder, assuming Will will catch it. He does, hands cupped reflexively. “Obviously, this would be a great place to talk.”

Will blinks. “Did you know we were coming?”

“I had a hunch,” she admits, closing the door behind them. “Uncle Chad said you all talked about  _ Hamilton.” _

“It was mentioned in passing.”

“He also said that his tickets had been moved, probably when you all pushed the furniture in the study around so as to hang the drapes--which, nice job, by the way.”

“Thanks?” Will is more than a little disturbed, not to mention happy Elaine doesn’t work for Jack. Chad was right--the gift  _ does _ run in the family. “So you figured that we’d plan to attend on the same day.”

Elaine crosses her arms across her ribs. “And I was right,” she says smugly.

Will mirrors her. “What are you wanting, Elaine?”

She licks her lips and averts her eyes. “I just...I’m really glad you’re both okay, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Elaine lowers her arms, starts fidgeting with her fingers and twisting her hands. Will instinctively wants to pull her close, to comfort her, but he doesn’t. “Maggie says I’m twisted,” she says quietly.

“Who’s Maggie?” asks Will.

“My mom. I’ve been following the Ripper murders since I was a little kid. Reading up on it, clipping articles.” Elaine looks back up at Will. “Sketching and drawing and painting the crime scenes. The Copycat kills, the murder of Randall Tier--all of it. It’s art, and I wanted to recreate the tableaus so other people would understand how beautiful it was.”

“Hey, no, sweetheart, don’t.” Will steps up to her, toe to toe, lifting her chin with one curled finger and thumbing away a tear with his other hand. “It’s okay to be a little twisted.”

“Other  _ fans _ are even put off by me,” she says. “They’ll post art and stories of you both in...compromising positions. I mean, so do I--and I feel like I should apologize for that--”

“Not necessary,” Will assures her. “Hannibal loves it.”

“Oh!” That cheers Elaine up, if only for a moment. “Anyway, I post my recreations, and people get nervous. That it’s too dark, that we should be celebrating your love and friendship and personalities. Like, they’ll make original stuff, gore dripping everywhere, but the real acts are too much?” She makes a noise of disgust. “It’s bullshit. They say they adore you, and they do. But they don’t  _ understand _ you.”

“Not like you do.”

Elaine nods. “Yeah.”

“Tell me, Elaine--”

“Lainey,” she corrects. “Elaine is my grandmother. Great-grandmother. Whatever.”

His shoulders shake with silent laughter. “Lainey, then. Do you ever think about making your own?”

“I paint it,” says Elaine. “I paint what I see in my head.”

Will sighs, because he knows what that’s like all too well, to have murder burned in your brain, both your own dreams and the acts of others, and to have to hide it. Though Elaine is brave enough to show the world now at nearly eighteen. If only he’d had such courage.

“Do you ever want to act on it?” he asks, and she watches every movement of his lips.

Elaine whispers, “Yes.”

“Wait,” says Will, and he clasps both her hands in his. “Keep drawing and painting, but wait.”

“For what? ‘Til when?”

He smiles down at her, though she’s nearly as tall as Will in her heels. “You’ll know.”

Elaine takes a deep breath, steadying herself. “Tell me about your necklace,” she says. “I...I need to recenter before we go back in.”

“Hannibal gave it to me when we got to the hotel last night,” says Will. He’s concerned about how easily he trusts her, but kicks caution down the stairs. “He said he wanted everyone to know who I belonged to.”

“Why not just collar you, silly boy?”

Will feels his eyes grow wide. His breath stutters in his chest. He doesn’t know how to respond or what to say.

Elaine takes back her hands. She hovers one over Will’s shoulder. “May I?”

He shakes his head incredulously and says, “You’re the one he might stick on the menu, not me.”

She giggles, and curls her fingers behind his neck. With the other hand, she traces the beads that drape across Will’s chest. “Chad said you called Hannibal ‘daddy’ so...is that why he chose this and not a band around your neck? Because he’d rather play dress up?”

It’s Will’s turn to whisper now. “Yes.”

“Okay,” says Elaine, and she withdraws her hands, moves to hold Will’s again where they hang at his side. “I just thought you’d like to know it’s fine. Y’know, if you didn’t want to hide in front of us. It’s cool.” She squeezes Will’s fingers. “None of us have to hide around each other, yeah?”

Will swallows, his mouth dry. “No,” he agrees, “I don’t suppose we do.”

“Awesome!” She tugs on his hands again. “C’mon, come help me with my lipstick. I promised you a trip to the ladies room.”

“You...you really don’t have to follow through on that.”

“No, no, I insist.” Elaine releases Will long enough to open the door. “I learned from someone that I should always keep my promises.”

Will considers the ridiculous girl in front of him, how she shifts from crafty to vulnerable to chic to sly. Elaine’s going to be the death of somebody. Hopefully, Will won’t be first.

Unless Hannibal just wants to help her practice, make Will a living test subject. Wouldn’t be the first time for that, either.

He shrugs, and follows her back into the light.

 

* * *

 

Elaine takes Will’s seat before he can, elbows an obviously relieved Chad and an expectant Hannibal at the same time. Hannibal turns his head, then turns and stands. He holds out his hand, smiling with his eyes, and Will takes it, not expecting the kiss on the back.

“I apologize for not escorting you before,” Hannibal says as they take their seats again.

Will shrugs it off, though he’s grown warm inside from the attention. “Figured it was just you keeping up appearances.”

Hannibal hasn’t released his hand yet. In fact, he’s running the nails of the other lightly over the back of it. Will closes his eyes in pleasure, and his cheeks begin to heat up. Hannibal knows how much Will loves his nails, loves to be teased, and here he is, not only doing it in public, but in front of two people who  _ know. _

“I was merely acquainting myself with the young lady,” continues Hannibal. “I told you before that you were the one I would wish to show off, and that has not changed.” He flips Will’s hand and begins to give the inner part of his arm the same treatment, nails dragging up and down, spiraling. Will presses his thighs together and bites the inside of his cheek. “Good?”

Will takes a shaky breath. “Yes,” he says, but Hannibal pinches the thin skin right over the veins at Will’s wrist.

“Properly.” The corner of his mouth perks up as Will opens his eyes and glances over Hannibal’s shoulder. Chad’s eyes are buried in his Playbill again--he must be one of those people that reads every word of every biographical blurb within--but Elaine is looking right at him. Hannibal knows, of course; he always knows. “No one here will be surprised, Will. I’m certain you are aware of that already.”

“It’s humiliating.”

“And  _ I _ am aware of  _ that.  _ Now let’s try again. Do my nails on your skin excite you?”

Will knows he isn’t getting out of this, that anybody around them might hear, and God if that isn’t entirely too thrilling for the theatre. “Yes, Daddy.” Elaine gasps, almost more of a hiccup.

“That’s my boy,” says Hannibal fondly, immediately followed by, “Enough, Eileen. Turn around.”

Eileen gives a small salute, though Hannibal still has yet to look at her. “You’re the boss, Boss.” She immediately pulls out her phone, adding, “Pretty sure I’ve read this fanfic, anyway. But it never hurts to check.”

Hannibal puts his hand on Will’s knee--nothing improper; he knows Will’s brain can provide plenty of ideas. “I will not apologize for putting you on the spot--”

“Good,” interrupts Will, “because I’d hardly expect you to.”

“Careful,” Hannibal tells him, but his crow’s feet deepen. “As I was saying, I will not apologize, because you look as exquisite in gold and pearls as I expected you to.”

“Ačiū, tėvelis.” Will preens under Hannibal’s gaze. This game they play makes Will feel twenty years younger. He wonders how much younger he’ll feel--let alone look--when Hannibal has him waxed. That’s going to hurt like a bitch. Then again, Will’s only now gotten over the delicious beating Hannibal gave him, not to mention Hannibal  _ gutting _ him, so he thinks he can put up with something as inconsequential as wax.

Right now, however, Hannibal is stroking the side of his clean-shaven face, and Will trusts him with his body; his heart; his life.

Hannibal smiles, that rare smile that’s Will’s and Will’s alone. “Where have you gone,  širdie?” he asks. “Is it somewhere I can follow?”

“Always,” says Will. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to stop putting translations at the end here. We won't be encountering any new words or phrases.
> 
> And poor Chad. He really does have the worst luck. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), this is his best possible universe.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a hop, skip, and a jump away from being a song fic. If you haven't heard the song "Burn" from _Hamilton,_ [you're going to want to listen to it](https://youtu.be/1CFOuGqBSEE). Their repartee will make more sense that way.
> 
> I've been waiting to write this chapter for months now; I hope you enjoy it. <3

Will makes it through “Burn” without shedding a tear, but only because he refuses to leave the theatre while Phillipa Soo is singing her next-to-last performance as Eliza. Then again, he would hard-pressed to leave the theatre when she was singing under any circumstances, the arrival of Jack Crawford and his probable personal unit of other Bureau retirees being one of them. If Jack was to show his face right now, however, here at this very moment, Will would surrender freely just to stay and listen to her as long as possible. Or, perhaps, he and Hannibal could fight to the death as she sang--a poetic end, especially for Will.

But Hannibal doesn’t know. Will never stays in the room when it comes on, always finds something to do elsewhere. This is the last defense of his heart, and now…

Now, Will doesn’t remember why he still thinks he has to guard it.

Let tėvelis punish his boy for the rudeness later, make Will repent for the way he climbs over knees and feet and purses, pushed forward by the sound of whistling and tambourine. Will feels Hannibal’s eyes boring into his back, but he can’t stop, can’t sob openly, brokenly in the aisle.

Will made a valiant effort, but that song always, always wins.

He slips ten title characters to the bathroom attendant--”Take a smoke break,” Will begs him, eyes brimming, “put the out of order sign on the door.” When he’s gone, when Will is well and truly alone, he lets himself slide down the wall; he sits in the floor, and finally lets himself cry.

It shouldn’t affect him this way, that song, not anymore. Hannibal is well and truly his; the past is behind them. Will shouldn’t react to lyrics like a teenage boy, heart broken for the first time. But Hannibal had given him a heart in the first place, hadn’t he? He’d climbed over the walls of lies Will had spent a lifetime building for himself, and then shattered the castle within to pieces instead of protecting it.

And that’s how Will feels now, crumbling in and upon himself, devastated, defeated. His nose starts to run, and he wipes it on his shirt sleeve, petulant even in cathartic grief.

Will’s not sure how long he sits there in the floor next to attendant’s chair. It’s at least long enough to need to wipe his nose a second time. A while later, and Will goes toward his sleeve a third time, but there are fingers beneath his chin.

He doesn’t open his eyes; Will would know those hands anywhere.

“Keep your face up for me,” says Hannibal, and then there’s an undoubtedly expensive handkerchief on Will’s cheek. Hannibal tries to dry his tears, but it only makes Will cry harder, so eventually Hannibal settles for wiping Will’s nose.

“How’d you find me?” Will asks. His voice sounds alien, nose pinched in a handkerchief, throat rough from weeping.

“I followed our scent,” replies Hannibal, making it sound like anyone and everyone could have smelled him on Will. “Sweet boy. Tell Daddy what’s wrong.”

Will grabs the lapels of Hannibal’s suit jacket--that _stupid_ plaid jacket that Will balked and rolled his eyes at when Hannibal tried to get him sized for one that matched--and now it’s not that Will doesn’t need to look at Hannibal, it’s that he simply _can’t,_ not and stay honest, but there aren’t words right enough, _enough_ enough. He pulls Hannibal closer, practically into his lap, pushes Hannibal’s face against the side of his neck so Will doesn’t have to make eye contact, at all, as if that’s somehow easier.

He whispers, “I saved every letter you wrote me,” and cherishes Hannibal’s quick, quiet inhale. “From the moment I read them,” continues Will, “I knew you were mine.”

“I said I was yours,” Hannibal murmurs. Eyelashes tickle at Will’s neck as Hannibal’s eyelids flutter erratically. “I thought you were mine.”

_This is somehow worse,_ thought Will. _Now I’m never going to be able to listen to it again._

“You really read them?” And Hannibal sounds awed, like he’d half expected Will to turn them over to the FBI as easily as he’d turned over Hannibal himself. “You never said.”

“You and your words flooded my senses.” They had, too; every letter felt like a conversation they’d never had, might never be able _to_ have. Every time an envelope showed up in Will’s mailbox--especially when they had showed up at his and Molly’s home--Will could feel the old ache in his gut. He’d stand there shaking, staring into the box while the envelope stared back, mixed in with the bills and the junk mail and the inevitable invitation to a local church.

Will had never wanted to murder postal workers in his entire life, but each time he saw a letter that had somehow slipped past Alana’s watchful eye, Will longed to kill anyone else who had ever come in contact with the envelope. Then he would go inside, open it slowly, and want to die himself. Lamenting what he could have had but turned away was worse than any physical anguish.

Hannibal tries to pull back, but Will’s grip grows tighter. “Your sentences left me defenseless. You built me palaces out of paragraphs. You built cathedrals.”

“Show them to me,” Hannibal pleads, lips warm against Will’s ear. “Show me the places that I built for you, širdie.”

It gets easier every time, to slip into their mind palace. Will walks along the familiar docks in Biloxi; he and his father nod at each other as they pass, Will into the hallways of the BSHCI, his father into the mist he disappeared in and never came back from.

Hannibal is exactly where Will expected him to be, because Hannibal is always able to be found, should Will wish to look. Will turns a corner and opens the door to the glass cage. Within, Hannibal walks around Jack’s desk, investigating his files, admiring the photographs of Cassie Boyle’s tableau.

“Why here?” Hannibal asks. He doesn’t look up, silver hair tumbling into his face.

“We began here,” says Will.

“And the cage?”

Will swallows. “You told me this is where I would always find you. Even before you told me to think of you here, I came to the BSHCI--to my palace--to see you when life was...how did you put it? ‘Maddeningly polite’?”

Hannibal finally turns his eyes to Will. “I met you here, as well. Perhaps we came to see each other at the same time,” he posits, and smiles in the way that only Hannibal can. “Perhaps our palaces have been merged longer than we thought.” He blinks, and Will sees the curious psychiatrist emerge. “Tell me. Did you imagine restraints when you bothered to imagine me?”

He pretends to consider the question, assumes the guise of the patient, though patience is in short supply. “Yes,” Will finally says, “but not on you.”

“Oh?” Hannibal’s eye flash fire.

_There you are,_ thinks Will. _This place saps your spirit._ It’s powerful, to feel as Hannibal does, always assessing, calculating, processing. Here, in the palace, Will isn’t crying; he’s in control of himself. Hannibal, though? Not so much. _I wonder why. If I was hiding this, what, then, are you concealing yourself?_

But Will says none of that. “Do you know what Molly said when she saw your first letter arrive?” he asks.

“It was hardly my first.”

He grimaces, and amends, “The first she’d seen, then.”

Hannibal sighs, resigned, and sits in Jack’s chair. “What did she say, Will?” It feels uncomfortably like their conversations after Will resumed his shambles of a therapy. “‘Be careful with that one, love?’”

“She never called me ‘love’,” Will tells him, “but that’s immaterial now.”

He cocks his head and asks, “What did she say about the letter?”

“Nothing about the letter itself. She merely hoped the author would burn in hell for what he did to me.”

“And you?”

Will closes his eyes. “You don’t get to know what I said.” He feels the tears begin to flow again, liquid pooling beneath his eyelids. “But I do consider this our song, so to speak. Loving and hating in equal measure. We will always be vicious,” says Will, making himself look at Hannibal, stare down the man whose face is stoic but eyes are overwhelmed. “There will always be violence between us, as from violence we were born. But I will always be yours, Hannibal.”

He reaches for Will, and Will takes Hannibal’s hand, sits on the edge of and slides across the desk and into Hannibal’s lap. Will watches the landscape bend and change in the mirror of Hannibal’s eyes, great spires and staircases and towers of Babel, hewn chapels in forgotten forests, an oasis of truth in a desert of lies. Wherever Will went during their forced separation, Hannibal was always a step ahead and a step behind.

A ghost orchid blooms in the miniature Everglades reflected within one tear, leaving a trail of petals down Hannibal’s cheek, pistil and stamen left to collect under the curve of his chin.

“It’s beautiful,” Hannibal whispers.

Will holds Hannibal’s face between his hands, lets the flowers fall between his fingertips. “The world has no right to my heart.”

“It is _mine,”_ says Hannibal, “and no one else will ever touch it as I have, will touch _you_ as I have.”

“Possessive bastard,” Will says affectionately. Fireflies blink around them in the damp and the dark.

“You are the only thing I wish to possess,” and Will believes him.

“The world has no place in our bed.”

“Then we shall burn it, širdie,” Hannibal promises. “We shall burn it and rise from the ashes, Achilles and his Patroclus.”

In a theatre bathroom far, far away, Will clasps Hannibal’s head to his chest, presses his face into the beads and pearls upon it. “You are my Icarus,” he says.

“If so, you must be my sun.”

Will kisses the top of Hannibal’s head, inhaling deeply. He smells like home. “Take me to our room,” says Will.

“Yes. Anything.” His exhale is shaky.

_Yes. Anything._

Will threads his fingers into Hannibal’s bun and pulls his head up. “Take me to bed, tėvelis”

“What of the rest of the show?”

“I know how it ends,” says Will. He releases his tight hold on Hannibal’s hair and does his best to fix it back to its former coiffed perfection. “Let’s end our night differently.”

Hannibal leans in and kisses Will so sweetly he thinks he might melt into the washroom floor. “As you wish,” he says. “Off to bed we go.”

 

* * *

 

The room Hannibal booked is the most ostentatious place Will has ever stayed in. He’d admonished Hannibal for the extravagance--and been suitably, wonderfully reprimanded for doing so--reminding him that this was the sort of thing Jack would be keeping an eye out for.

Still, Will can’t deny how much he enjoys the understated beauty of the place. Now that Hannibal’s given him permission to seek out and revel in luxury, Will was more than comfortable running his fingers along the damask-print bedspread. He flopped back onto the plush king mattress like an exuberant boy instead of a forty-year-old man. There’s a clawfoot tub in front of a large window overlooking midtown Manhattan; Will hopes Hannibal will give him a bath, or perhaps make him bathe himself with the curtains thrown open.

Now that they’ve returned from the Richard Rodgers, though, Hannibal seems more interested in unpacking. _Again._

“I thought you already emptied the suitcases into the closet.” Will bounces a little on the bed as he sits and waits. His cheeks itch with the salt of dried tears, but Will leaves it be; knowing Hannibal, he’ll want to lick them off.

“There was a reason I made you stand in the corner--”

Will huffs a laugh. “I might have figured that out already.”

Hannibal turns to look at Will. “Do you need to go back to it, mažai žvėris? Or can you be good?”

But Will isn’t exactly listening. “I’m starting to think Mary Poppins made your luggage,” he says, pointing to the small stack of packages in Hannibal’s hands. “How on earth did you get those packed and wrapped without me seeing--and don’t say,” he admonishes, grinning, “that you did it all while I was carefully studying the wallpaper.”

“A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

“You’re absurd,” says Will, scooting back further on the bed until only his feet hang over the side. He bounces a little bit toward the head, making room for Hannibal to join him.

“I must disagree,” and Hannibal hands off the shirt-sized boxes to Will. “I was found legally insane, not legally absurd.” He makes to sit on the bed, but grimaces as he does.

“Overdo it today?” Will pulls himself back to the edge of the bed and holds out both hands to give Hannibal something more solid to balance himself with, palms facing up so he can grab Hannibal’s arms and support them with his own.

“Nothing I cannot manage.” But Hannibal leans on him heavily, as Will expected. He’s grateful the bed isn’t any higher off the ground than it already is. “Now,” he begins as he and Will settle back against the pillows rather than sit with no back support, “open them, please.”

“Anything in particular first?”

“Take your pick.”

Will does, not that there’s much difference between any of the boxes. Still, on principle, he takes the on second from the bottom instead of the first. It’s wrapped in a rich cream-colored paper, edges perfectly creased, tape expertly concealed, because of course it is. He tries to open it as carefully as possible; the inside of the paper is a matte gold that holds fingerprints when held too long.

Finally, Will has torn enough paper to open the box, which he does. His hands tremble; his breath catches. “Hannibal--”

“Touch it,” Hannibal tells him. “Take it between your fingers, and then react as you will.”

The silk of the romper--because Will steadfastly refuses to call it a teddie, even though it absolutely _must_ be--is a pale pink, trimmed with ivory lace at the top. At the bottom, the legs of the tap pants are entirely lace, accented with tiny blue silk bows, one on either leg where the edge of the lace meets the edge of the silk. At the top, the straps are the same blue ribbon threaded through more lace, and another delicate little bow at the front.

He wishes he had a better reaction, but Will’s so struck by the gift, by how much he _wants_ it, that the only thing he’s able to say is, “But I’ll ruin it.”

“Darling boy,” says Hannibal, “I sincerely hope so.”

Will smooths the lace and tries to ignore his thickening cock. “Should I ruin them now?”

Hannibal runs the back of one finger down the side of Will’s face, temple to chin. “What an eager little thing you are.”

“I am what you made me,” Will says, looking at him from the corner of his eye.

“You like it,” and he doesn’t know whether Hannibal means the gift or Will himself. It doesn’t matter; the answer would be the same regardless. “Open another.”

Will does, and now he refuses to conceal his delight. It’s okay to want this for himself, to feel beautiful, to see himself as Hannibal wants him to be seen. Each box is more of the same: another romper, made of nothing but lace, with cap sleeves and a gathered waist; yet another, completely sheer with no lace, at all; tap pants on their own, black with the smallest of gold buttons; a long silk robe that reminds Will more of _Madama Butterfly_ than the boudoir. Will thinks he would fully comprehend what it means to have an embarrassment of riches had Hannibal not spent so long teaching Will not to be embarrassed, at all.

Hannibal’s fingers find their way into Will’s hair. He tuts at him, pulling Will’s face away from the robe where he has been shamelessly stroking the inside of it against his cheek. “I have one thing more.”

“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” Will asks playfully.

Another box, much smaller, pulled now from the inside of Hannibal’s suit jacket. He hands it to Will. “Open it,” Hannibal says, but his words seem nervous, breathier, or else it is a trick played by the rustling of Hannibal’s jacket as he removes it.

Will is terrified that it will be a gift he may never be ready for; to his relief, it isn’t. Though it might as well be, he supposes, running the tip of one finger along the edge of one of four thin golden cuffs. He knows what they are, but decides to play coy, anyway, because it’s more fun. “Bracelets?”

“Of a sort.” Hannibal is rolling up his shirtsleeves, cufflinks laid carelessly on the bed beside him.

“These look almost like necklace chains,” muses Will, and they do, albeit much, much longer. He picks up one of the tiny gold locks. “I suppose there’s only one key to these.”

Hannibal chuckles darkly beside him. “As far as you will ever know, yes.”

Will’s tired of telling himself how that shouldn’t make him feel so desperate, how he shouldn’t want this, _any_ of this, including Hannibal, _especially_ Hannibal, but Will’s been nothing but “shouldn’t” all of his miserable damn life, and he’s beyond finished with being miserable.

He sets the box down on the bed with the others, turns to Hannibal, and says, “Fuck me.”

Hannibal’s nostrils flare, but he shakes his head slowly. “No,” Hannibal says, taking Will’s hand. “Not the way you are asking. I long to hurt you in most ways possible, Will, but not in this. In time, once I’ve worked you up to it, denied you long enough that it’s the only thing you can think of. But not tonight.”

“I want to be as close to you as I can be without killing you,” and Will considers Hannibal’s involuntary shiver a personal victory.

“As do I.”

Will thinks, trying not to become frustrated at being denied. “You said I could have anything.”

“Yes.”

“And you meant it?”

A pause, but Hannibal still says, “Yes.”

Will leans over, all but crawling into Hannibal’s lap. “Then I want to fuck _you.”_

Hannibal stiffens, and not in the way Will had hoped. He does more than that--Hannibal closes his eyes, closes himself off, and Will has never seen him react this way. It’s uncomfortable in the way that learning about the bystander effect in the academy discomfited him, a pervading sense of disbelief and unease. Will hasn’t felt like this since the first time he--

_Oh God._

He eases back to sit beside Hannibal, thighs nearly touching. Will is oddly reminded of sitting in Jack’s office six years before, waiting for Jack to come clean about what was wrong.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Will says softly.

Hannibal takes a shuddering breath. “I feel that I must--rather, that I ought.” Will holds out his hand, uncertain if Hannibal will welcome it now, but he takes it immediately, kisses Will’s wrist and palm. “How strange it is for me, to…” He sighs, and doesn’t finish.

Will bites the inside of his lip. It’s the urge to comfort and console that’s terrifying him most about this conversation. Before, what seems like ages ago, back as a beat cop, he’d had a statement to take to distract him from the overwhelming swell of empathy.

“Were you in the asylum long enough to be given a physical exam?” Will nods. “How were you restrained for yours?”

“Jacket, mask, the usual transport gear,” Will tells him. “Strapped to the handcart, until we got there. I thought they’d at least take the jacket off for the stethoscope, but the doc just listened to my heart from the back.” He pauses, then continues, “I always wondered why they didn’t move me in chains, but handcart protocol apparently applies to everyone when it’s time to see the doctor. Guess people put up more of a fight.” Will immediately regrets his phrasing, but knows better than to apologize.

Hannibal’s Adam’s apple bobs; he stares down at Will’s hand in his own, palm up, and laces his fingers in between Will’s, Hannibal’s nails biting into the tender skin. “It is easier to deal with, saying nothing. As a medical professional, however, I know that such false closure is hollow. Nevertheless.”

“What happened?” asks Will, though he doesn’t want to hear, though he already has a good idea.

“I...Years were much shorter for me than for others.” Even now, Hannibal speaks in obfuscation. Will can parse the meaning--still, he stays silent, waits for Hannibal to be plain. At least, as plain as Hannibal could be. “I had a great many more annual physicals than one would anticipate for a three-year stay.”

A hotel in the heart of the theatre district, and Will has never been anywhere quieter.

“It is recommended by the American Cancer Society that prostate exams be undertaken yearly starting at the age of fifty,” and Will thinks it actually hurts _more_ to hear Hannibal speak clinically. “Since the purpose is only to collect a small sample of seminal fluid and not to achieve ejaculation, such an examination, when performed normally, takes only a few moments.” Hannibal hasn’t blinked once; it’s unnerving. He continues, and if Will didn’t know him so intimately, the tremor in his voice would be undetectable. “Mine were not performed normally.”

Will puts his other hand beneath Hannibal’s, holds it between both of his own. “Why didn’t you tell Alana?”

Hannibal scoffs. “It would have been quite easy to do, considering she was there.”

And Will can’t breathe.

“Who do you think ordered it done each time?” Hannibal asks him. “She found it entertaining, my supposed emasculation.”

Will can’t move. His blood freezes in his veins, and all he feels is cold.

“Alana became very cruel after being pushed out a window,” says Hannibal, finally glancing up at Will. “I suppose that, since she had to give me special privileges, she felt the need to take a few of her own. It was bearable, for a while, then merely tiresome, then irritating, then _agonizing._ But I gave her no satisfaction, despite my inability to--”

“I will kill her,” Will says, gently, sweetly. He takes his hands and puts them to either side of Hannibal’s face. “I will kill her so you can see that she is dead. Slowly.”

“With your hands?”

“No,” he explains, thumbs stroking across sharp cheekbones. “With a blade, because I do not love her.” Will brings their foreheads together, nestles their noses side by side, but never breaks eye contact. “You are the only one I would ever kill with my hands, Hannibal.”

Something akin to a sob scratches and tears its way out of Hannibal’s throat.

Will presses on. “Before I kill her, I’ll snip out her tongue so she has as much to say about it as you did. I’ll cut off her ears because she had, has, and will have no use for them. I will carve open her chest, and you’ll show me how to crack her ribs apart. I’ll avoid her heart--let Alana keep something so icy and poisoned, should it exist, at all--but I will take out one lung a thin slice at a time, and feed it to you raw while she watches.”

Hannibal’s chest heaves, and his eyes are wild. “Deadly, vicious boy,” he says, awestruck. “What more, širdie? Tell me your design.”

“We can’t murder the good doctor,” says Will, “so I’ll take her hands, instead. I’ll tell her exactly where the crime scene investigators will find each of her fingers, because I’m _better_ than she is and won’t force them there while she’s still alive.”

_“Will.”_

“I’ll give you the knife then, let you remove her lips, because they touched ours once.” He kisses Hannibal’s forehead. “And I know how much you enjoy the taste, so you can have them all to yourself.”

Hannibal’s eyes are streaming, overcome by his own admission, Will thinks, or perhaps humbled by Will’s own passion. Maybe both. Will kisses his cheeks, his nose, his chin, the places Daddy’s kissed him so many times before.

“Tėvelis,” he begins.

“Will,” Hannibal repeats, and he sounds so _broken,_ but in the best way.

“Daddy--”

And Hannibal says against his mouth, “Make love to me. Erase her from my narrative.”

“Where?” asks Will, breathless.

“The veranda again,” says Hannibal, helpless.

“You’re sure?” he asks, seeking permission.

“As I’ve ever been,” Hannibal says, permission given.

“I’ll go slow,” Will swears.

“Please, don’t,” Hannibal begs.

“Tell me to stop,” he dares.

“No, I won’t,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Alana's canonical character growth. Don't judge me for needing a good villain.
> 
> One chapter and an epilogue to go! Will I finish by the end of [#NovemberAmnesty](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/HanniCreative_NovemberAmnesty)? Tune in next time...


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang on to your hats, folks. Here comes the conclusion...

There wasn’t a bed on the veranda in their shared palace, but it’s little effort to move the one from the hotel outside and into the sunshine. Will is hardly paying attention to their surroundings, but if Hannibal wants this, so be it. Whatever will make him comfortable, he’ll happily do.

Will briefly considers undressing Hannibal, but he already looks laid bare, too vulnerable, so Will decides to tend to his own clothes first. He doesn’t put on a show--another time, maybe--just removes each article one by one under Hannibal’s watchful eye. Rather than sweep all the clothes off the bed, Will stacks them neatly on top of the gift boxes. Most of the boxes, anyway.

He sits back down beside Hannibal, who is looking at the pillow on his other side in uncharacteristic shyness. “Tėvelis?”

Hannibal glances over, first to Will, eyes raking over his nude body, and then to the box in Will’s hand. Without taking it from Will, Hannibal raises the lid.

Will grins widely as Hannibal meets his own gaze. “Put them on me?” he asks.

He takes the box from Will then, scooting back to lean against the headboard, and pulls Will onto the bed to sit between his legs. Hannibal puts one around Will’s wrist first, kisses the skin there again and again, as he seems to be fond of doing. Will wonders if it’s because of the pulse he can feel there, if it reminds Hannibal of how alive Will is, of the blood that flows beneath the surface, but doesn’t ask.

Hannibal begins to thread the shackle of a tiny padlock through the first loop, then hesitates. “Chains, as well?”

“If you like.” Will bends his head to the right, seeking Hannibal’s eyes. “You may be putting me on top,” he says, “so to speak, but that hardly makes me the dominant party, Hannibal.”

Realization finally dawns. “I fear I will never earn you,  širdie. Not truly.”

“Nevertheless, you have me.” Will takes a slender chain--he could snap it if he had to, he thinks, and is curious if that is part of Hannibal’s  _ own _ design--and presents it to Hannibal, grasped between thumb and finger. “Whatever are you to do with me?”

Hannibal’s head tilts ever-so-slightly to the right, and yes,  _ there’s _ Will’s Hannibal again, calculating and collected, though hardly composed. He takes the chain, puts the loop of it on the lock first, then secures the cuff.

“Did you know,” begins Hannibal, moving to give Will’s other wrist the same treatment, “that I considered getting chain long enough so as to lace it beneath your clothes?” This cuff goes on faster, and Will is losing patience, himself. “It would have enough slack to allow you to move your arms unrestricted, of course, just as now, but you would go through the motions of your entire day knowing you were owned, wondering if anyone else could see.” He notices the change in Will’s breathing. “That excites you.”

“Very much so,” Will manages to say.

Hannibal doesn’t reply. He takes Will’s feet one at a time to fasten a cuff around each ankle. Will thinks for a moment that Hannibal is going to kiss his feet, as well. Of all the things they’ve done over the past few weeks, he finds it hilarious that this is what he’s unsure about.

“What’s so funny, berniuk?”

“Us, mostly,” says Will. As soon as Hannibal’s secured the last lock, Will shifts to his knees, kissing him before he can make Will expound on his answer. Lips pressed together, and now it’s impossible for Hannibal to mask his nervousness, his trepidation, even. There’s no mask to disappear behind when skin is on skin. Or else, maybe Will’s become immune to the illusion entirely. He prefers the latter to the former.

Hannibal’s arms are around Will, one hand curling up and over his shoulder, the other low on the opposite hip. Will licks at the seam of his lips, asking for entry, and Hannibal lets him in. He slides the tip of his tongue along the points of Hannibal’s teeth, curious if they’ll scratch, if Hannibal can make him bleed without even trying. But Will’s tongue remains uncut, but he’s not surprised to find himself slightly disappointed by it. Hannibal’s worked hard to awaken this bloodlust buried within him, after all.

Will rests his arms on Hannibal’s shoulders, hands tangling behind Hannibal’s head as they undo his bun, leaving his hair to trail over his forearms like silver silk. He cards one hand through Hannibal’s hair; with the other, Will begins to slowly unbutton Hannibal’s shirt. It’s a delicate balance, trying to not spook him while also not letting Hannibal be aware that Will believes he could possibly be spooked.

He decides to be cheeky and tug on Hannibal’s tie, breaking the kiss to say, “This is hardly an ideal position,” hoping it puts Hannibal more at ease. “Stand up so I can finish undressing you?”

Hannibal stills Will’s hands as they work to undo the knot of his tie. “I am...Will, I am unaccustomed to being openly...vulnerable.”

Will kisses the corner of his mouth. “I know. But you’re safe here,” and he kisses the opposite corner, too, “with me.”

“Yes.” Hannibal’s hands frame Will’s face. “You are precious to me, širdie, you understand. Always have you been precious to me, though my ways of demonstrating so are strange.”

“That’s definitely one way of putting it, yes.”

“I trust you, mažai žmogus,” he says, and Will knew that already, but he’ll never tire of hearing it. “I would undress myself, however.” Hannibal doesn’t wait for Will to respond, simply swats his hands away and begins to remove his tie himself. “Perhaps I will let you another time.”

“It’s fine,” says Will, moving backward on the bed to give Hannibal room to get up. “Besides, I like to watch.”

“And to be watched,” adds Hannibal, standing now. He acts unaffected, rolling the sleeves of his shirt back down, silently fussing over his clothes even now.

“That, too.”

Hannibal continues removing his clothes nonchalantly as they talk. “Did you always know of your voyeuristic tendencies? Of your exhibitionist streak?”

Will  _ hmm _ s. He leans back on his hands, letting the chain pull across his stomach; he spreads his legs, bent at the knee over the bed, and feels the chain between his ankles pull taut.

“Had you forgotten you were bound, berniuk?”

He bites at his lip. “Maybe a little.” Closing his eyes, Will tries to channel his slyest fantasies, everything he’s thought of since their first encounter in Chad’s study, every sexual thought he’s kept under wraps. Will listens for and keeps track of Hannibal’s progress undressing, impatient: the heft of Hannibal’s vest as it settles atop the shirt and tie on the tufted bench; the slip of his suit pants against his legs; the snap of the clips on his sock garters being undone.

“If there’s a next time…” He trails off, lost in his own mind as the second slowly creep by. _ Maybe next time, he’ll wear a little less clothing, _ Will hopes, sighing as he stretches his arms up above his head. Maybe he’s overdoing it, arching his back like this, displaying himself, but Will’s never done so before. He could get drunk on feeling desirable, dizzy with it, languid and lazy here in the sunlight.

“If there is?”

Will jerks and his eyes flutter open as Hannibal mouths at the base of his cock. He’d lost track of Hannibal’s progress undressing, forgetting to listen for Hannibal’s bare feet giving away his position. Then again, Will can’t complain about being surprised like this. “Fuck, Daddy, your mouth feels good.”

“Behave for me and answer,” Hannibal says. “Or do you not want to be sucked?” He licks up Will’s shaft with the tip of his tongue, a meandering path that leaves Will struggling not to wiggle.

“I just thought--” Will breaks off again, this time into a gasp as Hannibal licks once at the tip, gathering the precome there. “If you want, next time you could restrain me and use me however you wish.”

Hannibal chuckles, and Will groans at the vibration caused by it. “Of course you would like that. To be nothing more than a toy for me. But isn’t that what you are now?”

And this is what Will had hoped for, to pull Hannibal so deeply into the role that he would forget his nervousness at what was to come. He can’t deny that he would enjoy it regardless. “Tell me how you’d do it. Prašau, t ėvelis.”

Hannibal pulls the head of Will’s cock into his mouth and sucks at it loosely. Will can feel spit run down his shaft as Hannibal laves at it with his tongue. It’s wet and warm and Will tenses every muscle, trying his best not to thrust up into damp heat. Hannibal pulls off with a sucking pop and a parting lick, then begins to bite his way up Will’s body, beginning at his hips.

“My legs aren’t what they used to be,” he says, alternating between biting and nibbling and only teasing with his teeth as he speaks. “I think I would very much enjoy riding you, however, though it would be slow going. Your cock would need to be bound, of course, to keep you thick and hard for me to use. And I would not want you thrusting up into me--it wouldn’t be for your pleasure, only mine.”

Will’s already a mess, breathy little moans and half-words as he pushes his body into Hannibal’s teeth and lets his words wrap around him.

“So your ankles restrained, then. And I already know of your predilection for the straightjacket. Had I known before,” Hannibal continues, fully lying on top of Will now, cock hardening against his, “how much you would enjoy it, I might have simply kept you a pet at home rather than having you committed. But then we would not be here, would we?”

“Ne,  t ėvelis.”

“A straightjacket then, to keep you all nice and snug for me. A gag, of course--toys cannot speak,” and that makes Will moan the loudest. Some distant part of him tries to be ashamed of his desire; Will quashes it immediately. “Did you know,” begins Hannibal, taking a moment to tug at Will’s ear with his teeth, rutting against him, “that there are phallic gags, berniuk? Something to keep your mouth entertained while I use the rest of you?”

Will forgets how words work, reduced to whining. Hannibal kisses his temple.

“I find your wantonness quite amusing.” Hannibal takes a deep breath, the only indication that he’s still hesitant about bottoming. “Are you desperate for me?”

“Always,” Will says, laughing a bit. He thinks quickly, then says, “Are you going to let me touch you while you prepare yourself?”

Hannibal raises up and looks down at Will. “Do you think you deserve it?”

“I think I’ve behaved myself, don’t you?” Will leans up enough to be kissed, and Hannibal obliges. It’s nice, all of the kissing; he thinks he could easily spend an entire day like this, just lazily petting and kissing each other, making up for lost time when they weren’t nearly as sweet.

Hannibal rolls off of him and says, “I believe you left the lubricant in your suitcase. Very shortsighted of you.” Will ignores him and gets up; the chain is long enough to walk with, but short enough to remind him that’s it there. It occurs to him suddenly that he wouldn’t mind being hobbled some time, and his cock twitches.

He finds the suitcase behind an unnecessary topiary, lit up from the inside.  _ Fireflies, _ he thinks,  _ always fireflies. _

“They must be deliberate and persistent,” Hannibal tells him. “In order to attract the perfect mate, their pattern must be perfect.”

“Is that what we are?” asks Will. “Fireflies?”

“Are we not, in a way, bioluminescent? Burning bright for a short time--free for as long as possible--then dying with the end of the light?”

Will crawls back on the bed between Hannibal’s legs, prone and open to him. “You’re a hopeless romantic. A complete and total sap.” He tries to press the tube of coconut oil into Hannibal’s hand, but Hannibal pushes it back. “Not complaining, just...you are.”

“I want you to do it,” he says, trying to keep his voice level, and failing miserably. Neither of them point it out--there are certain illusions to be kept, even here in their palace.

“It’s been a long time,” says Will, “but I was gonna go slow, anyway, whether you wanted me to or not.”

Hannibal smiles, a nervous, shaky thing. “Cheeky boy.”

“Not so much a boy,” Will reminds him.

“You’ll always be my eromenos.”

“And you my erastes?”

“Who else?”

Banter having served it’s purpose, Will kisses the inside of Hannibal’s knee. “I’m going to touch you now.” Hannibal nods calmly, coolly, but his hands fist the bedspread. “Relax, Daddy,” Will says, sing-song, but not patronizingly so. “It’s only me. No one else exists here. Just us.”

Will presses the pad of his middle finger to Hannibal’s hole, clenched tight. He’s unbearably gentle--at least, that’s what Will aims for--circling lightly, barely applying any pressure, coaxing Hannibal to open to him. “Tell me about what lies in the labyrinth beyond us.”

“You mean to distract me,” Hannibal says, eyes shut. “I would rather be here, in the moment, with you.”

“And you will be.” The coconut oil begins to melt between their combined body heat. “Is there a beast in the middle? Or are we the beast?”

Hannibal blinks his eyes open for a moment, but closes them again quickly. “You are, darling. My little beast. Mažai žvėris.”

“Is that what it means?” Will pushes in the tip of his finger, circling, stroking, seeking.

“It is,” says Hannibal. “You are.”

“And what is it that I protect, then? What here is priceless?”

“You, širdie,” he whispers, reverent. Hannibal bears down slightly on Will’s finger, and it slips in up to the first knuckle. “There is nothing else.”

“What does that mean?”

“Širdie?”

“Yes.” But Hannibal doesn’t explain, letting his head drop to the pillow, trying to relax as Will presses deeper and deeper. Will withdraws for a moment for more lube, watching Hannibal, unmasked, struggle written in deep lines on his face. He leaves his finger inside him, but angles his head down, catching the head of Hannibal’s cock in his mouth.

Hannibal’s erection had flagged, but Will licks and suck, coaxing it back to life. It fills within his mouth, and Will loves it, loves the weight of it on his tongue, holding it, pleasuring him. Finally, Will feels the first drops of precome, viscous and bitter, and Hannibal moans for the first time. Will draws back with a parting kiss to the head, peeking out of the foreskin. He lubes up a second finger, and pushes it in alongside the first.

“You’ve never let me inside you,” says Will. “Not in any way. How does it feel, letting me in?”

His hand releases the bedspread, seeking Will’s own. “Perfect,” he tells him. “I can think of nothing el-- _ ah!” _ Hannibal rocks his hips up as Will strikes his prostate for the first time.

“That good, Daddy?” Will asks, slipping back into the role. “Am I doing it right?” He rubs Hannibal’s prostate every other stroke, feeling his body relax around his fingers, watching in awe as Hannibal completely lets go, face open, mask obliterated. Will feels triumphant, that he has done what no one else can--found Hannibal beneath the layers and the walls; conquered him; taken him; claimed him.

“So good, baby boy,” Hannibal murmurs. Endearments keep falling from his lips as two fingers becomes three, as Will kisses and bites and sucks marks down his thighs. Will’s name becomes a chant until finally Hannibal says, “Stop now, berniuk, stop.”

“Did I hurt you, Daddy?”

“No, I only wish to come with you inside me,” and a tiny grin paints itself across Hannibal’s face as he glances up at Will. There’s a gratefulness there that Will isn’t sure he deserves. “Give me your cock now, mažai žmogus.”

Will gives himself a few perfunctory tugs, lubing himself up probably more than necessary, but Will can’t imagine that Hannibal was afforded that courtesy under Alana’s care.  _ Margot will raise that child alone, _ he thinks,  _ and I will burn the BSHCI to the ground. _ Will grits his teeth to keep from sneering, lines himself up, and begins to push in slowly.

“Oh  _ fuck.” _ Hannibal is hot and tight, like a too-small favorite glove. His walls pull Will in, encourage him to sink deeper, seeking the core of him, and so, too, does Hannibal. Will means to push in and pull back, to fuck into Hannibal in increments, but t ėvelis will have none of that, pressing back to meet him until Will’s groin is flush against his ass. They seek each other’s hands, and Hannibal eases Will down to lie against him.

Will is beyond overwhelmed, shaking in the circle of Hannibal’s arms, thighs tense, hips jerking in little aborted, helpless movements. “Daddy--”

_ “Shhhh, _ baby boy, I have you,” Hannibal mutters. His own hips stutter and shake. “How I have longed for this, to be joined together so completely.”

His ear is pressed to Hannibal’s chest; Will can hear his heart flutter within. They’re both crying, and it’s ridiculous,  _ ridiculous _ that two grown men should be so damned emotional here in bed, Will thinks. But he can’t imagine this having gone any other way, an exquisite counterpoint to the raging storm of their lives. Here, the thunder is quiet, and the rain is soft, and there is only two halves of an imperfect whole, rocking together, seeking friction within the shelter of each other’s bodies.

“Jesus Christ,” and Will is laughing; he can’t help himself, turning his face to look up at Hannibal, who cranes his neck to look down.

“Is this where we worship, Will?” He’s never seen Hannibal’s face light up like this before, so open, so entirely completely happy. “Am I your altar,  širdie?”

“It’s only…” Will sighs, and reaches up to play idly with one of Hannibal’s nipples, enjoying the contented sounds Hannibal makes. He pulls out a little, and slides back in, and now Hannibal moans, quiet and beautiful, so Will does it again, and again. His own pleasure is an afterthought, so long as he can make Hannibal make those noises, rounded notes, a composition all of his own.

_ “Mmmmm, _ what?” Hannibal tilts his hips slightly, as much as is possible with Will’s weight atop him, and pushes back. There’s no rush, no race to it.

“I love you,” says Will. “You know that, right?”

Hannibal stills beneath him. “You’ve never said.”

Will pushes up on his hands to look down at him, straightening his arms. “You really think I’d wear a wedding band if I didn’t?”

If Hannibal blinks any faster, the sunlight is going to strobe. “There are such things as marriages of convenience.”

“Oh my God,” Will exclaims, laughing. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I am.” Hannibal frowns, looks confused, and Will can’t stand him being cute--it makes the sharp, elegant lines of his face all wrong. He raises up to sit fully on his knees and brings Hannibal’s hips with him, supporting him. Hannibal cries out at the change in angle as Will’s cock finally nudges alongside his prostate.

“Hold on,” is all the warning Will gives him before he pulls completely out, and slides back in. It isn’t a slam, isn’t rough, just a smooth, fluid glide, punctuated by the nearly imperceptible slap of skin on skin.

“Bedelia told me once, when I asked,” Will starts, rhythm never faltering, “that you were in love with me, and...Hannibal, I was so angry with you. Not because you  _ were, _ but because you’d never  _ said, _ because I had to hear it fall from her lips and not yours. All either of us had ever done, have ever done is dance around the words, call each other by epithets and say it in every way possible besides the expedient one.” His hands grip white on Hannibal’s hips; the delicate gold chain of his cuffs tickles in an arc down Hannibal’s stomach; Hannibal stares up at him like he’s a god, and Will has never felt more powerful in all his life, both of them, in this moment, surrendered.

“But Hannibal,” he says, and then more tenderly, “Hannibal. Fuck, Hannibal, how I have loved you. I loved you in the back of that ambulance, holding life in your hands. I loved you when I kissed Alana, when you welcomed me uninvited, when you survived Tobias--Christ, how I loved you sitting there, alive.”

Hannibal pants, open-mouthed, struck silent, eyes watery and hair askew and sweat on his brow and it’s Will’s favorite face of all.

“I loved you when you let me seize, when you lied to me, when you stuffed Abigail’s ear down my throat and framed me and let them lock me away. I loved you when you butchered Beverly, and I couldn’t understand myself,  _ hated _ myself for still loving you, but deep down I knew who you were, besides a monster.”

“Who am I, Will?” and Hannibal’s eyes close involuntarily, and there’s a string of words Will can’t comprehend.

“A boy, Hannibal,” says Will, and they move together faster now, giving and taking, rolling and diving. “A little boy playing at being a man, a little boy who didn’t comprehend his own feelings and I couldn’t hate you enough, and you just--”  _ Slam. _ “--wouldn’t--”  _ Slam. _ “--die. And, God help me, I loved you even more for living.”

Hannibal’s curling up into himself, reaching for Will’s neck, and he laces his fingers behind it. His voice is all music.

“I loved you when I meant to shoot you and couldn’t, which is why, because I loved you, Hannibal--I didn’t want to, but I did. I loved you when I betrayed you, loved you when I warned you, loved you when you held me as I’d longed for you to and dug the knife into all my hidden places, when you left us to bleed on the floor and I loved you as you walked away.”

_ “Will,” _ Hannibal says, choking on it, drawing it out to three syllables and beyond, letting the vowels punch their way out of his lungs, letting the rain fall and pool on his face.

“I loved you across the ocean,” and Will couldn’t stop now if he wanted to, and he doesn’t--the words dying to be said, the plainness of it, the ache of it--but he has to close his eyes because Hannibal adores him too much and he simply can’t bear it. “I loved you in the catacombs and the gallery and the street, loved you when you meant to eat me, sawed into my skull just to see how my brain worked. I loved you when I bit out a man’s cheek like a teenager trying to impress a crush,” and Hannibal laughs, once, then twice, louder than Will’s ever heard him laugh. “I loved you when Cordell touched me, tainted me--not like Alana, but close, Hannibal, and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Then he deserved a much worse death than what I gave him,” and Will should probably worry that talking about murder gets them both wound up, but that’s so far down the list of things to be worried about that it doesn’t even matter.

Their coupling slows again, and they tumble from frantic to virginal so quickly. Will opens his eyes, struggles to meet Hannibal’s, like they’re meeting all over again. “I loved you when you carried me insensate and weak through the goddamn snow, which I still have no idea how you did, and I loved you when you dressed me and took care of me--”

“You remember,” says Hannibal, “I didn’t know you remembered.”

“--and I loved you when I made myself send you away, because your love was so heavy I couldn’t stand for the weight of it.” Will leans down, hooks his hands under Hannibal’s shoulders, stressing the integrity of the chain between his wrists. He puts his lips next to Hannibal’s ear. “I loved you when I said my vows, and I loved her, too, but even then I would have rather given them to you.”

Hannibal cries, and it’s the most glorious sound.

“I have waited to hear you say it for so long, Hannibal,” Will tells him, and his voice is cracking, and he doesn’t remember picking up speed again, but he must have--he can feel his orgasm approaching like the tide, like clockwork, inevitable as death. “I love you more than life, and if you want to take it, I’ll let you, but please, Hannibal,  _ say it back.” _

“Aš tave myliu, širdie,” he says, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing as he comes, cock rubbed between their bellies, spilling hot across their skin. “My heart, my heart, how I do love you.”

Hannibal’s reverted to broken language again when Will follows him over the precipice, coming deeper within him than any simple blade could hope to touch.

The sun has long set on the veranda by the time they let the sounds of the traffic below lull them to sleep, stomachs tacky, hearts full, unmoved, and unparted.


	15. Epilogue

Chad Eastwick survived  _ Hamilton, _ and he’s still baffled as to how he managed such a feat. Grateful, of course, but immensely confused.

He and Lainey left the theatre, and went back to their hotel. The next day, she insisted they visit The Cloisters, and he, being the wonderful uncle he is, acquiesced. Naturally, his darling niece had arranged to meet up with the two most wanted men in America. Hannibal escorted Lainey around on his arm, explaining literally every piece of art in the museum. Will had just shrugged and offered his to Chad, and Chad had shrugged back and taken it, because at that point, why the fuck not.

They had tea afterward. It was a lovely affair. Chad, of course, was so terrified that he broke two saucers from his hand shaking so hard, but his three companions were kind enough to overlook it.

This was his life now. He had made his peace with it. If Lainey was happy--and she was ecstatic to say the least--then Chad could be happy for her. Besides, it wasn’t like they were terrible people, the Lecter-Grahams, if one could overlook the fact that they were terrible people.

Chad tried to look in the mirror once to reassure himself of his current social life choices. He got as far as, “Hey, at least they aren’t--” and immediately had to stop and have a good cry.

But it was fine. Really, it was. Chad could put the oddest chapter of his life behind him, cement over the door to the basement, and use it as a wall for his doily collection.

Fine.

And then the mail began to arrive.

First was a postcard--another one, much to his dread--from the Maryland Institute College of Art, which probably should have been a sign, now that Chad’s looking back on it.

“We decided to get a leg up on the situation,” says Copperplate, and Chad had spent the better part of the evening--not to mention a good third of a bottle of scotch--trying to parse out what on earth they were getting up to. He didn’t figure it out, but he did get drunk, and that was almost better than knowing.

Second was a clipping from the newsletter of the Susquehanna River Valley's Junior League--an announcement of a member’s child’s birthday. Cute kid, a toddler with dark hair and haunted eyes. Single parent home. Chad still hasn’t figured out the significance of that.

The third was a hand-delivered card. Chad had opened his front door to see an elegant blonde woman with a metal prosthetic leg. He immediately hated himself for such a curt description, but he and scotch had become extremely close friends.

“A letter from our mutual acquaintance,” the woman had said, then tipped a blue hat that would’ve made Roberta jealous, and walked back down to a waiting car.

Chad waited until the car drove off, then sliced neatly into the envelope. It was a gorgeous card, and Chad remembered Hannibal and Will selecting them at The Cloisters’ gift shop. This one in particular was a photograph of Lainey’s favorite tapestry from Hannibal’s impromptu tour. “The Unicorn in Captivity” and Chad was certain there was some greater symbolism there that he simply wasn’t grasping.

On the inside, in black Sharpie, was written, “I can’t believe she actually did it.”

After that, more postcards from various locales, so many that Chad had actually started a scrapbook. It actually made him look forward to checking the mail again, knowing that whatever arrived from his globe-trotting cannibalistic fugitive friends would need to be memorialized on its own special page. Sometimes Hannibal would jot down a quick recipe, as if he was simply committing it to memory, then releasing it into the wild. On others, Will would share whatever pompous and infuriating thing his husband had done lately. Most of them had to do with the opera.

Chad wonders, at times, what will happen to the scrapbook should he meet an unfortunate end. He hopes that, should it be what his future holds, it will at least be the Lecter-Grahams that come calling for him. Then the scrapbook would at least end up in the right hands.

It’s somewhat humbling, being entrusted with the job of historian. He doesn’t think the likes of Ron Chernow will ever take up the mantle of cannibal biographer, not after what happened to Frederick Chilton. Maybe Freddie Lounds. She still seemed to be alive, which was almost more confounding than Chad’s own continued breathing.

He always texted Lainey to let her know when a new card had arrived, and she always fussed that they never sent her any mail.

“Maggie would burn it,” Chad would remind her. “And then they’d probably come burn Maggie.”

So when she called up to tell him that she’d received a letter all her own, Chad was both pleasantly surprised and struck dumb with horror.

“What did they send you?” he’d asked.

“It isn’t so much that they sent me anything,” Lainey told him. “It’s...you remember that art school I told you I wanted to get into, but that it was, like, the third best art school in the country and, like, forty-thousand dollars tuition a year?”

“Right, and I told you to hire yourself out as an assassin to pay for it,” said Chad. “Totally remember.”

“I got in.”

For a moment, all Chad could see was the inevitable draining of every one of his bank accounts. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to apply.”

“That’s just it. I  _ didn’t.”  _ She paused before adding, “They haven’t even hit the early admission deadline yet. I shouldn’t have this letter, but I do.”

“I still can’t afford tuition.”

“Well,” Lainey said, laughing, “I got a second letter.”

“And?”

“It’s paid for.”

Chad’s heart forgot how to operate, but luckily, his legs remembered how to find a chair, and his ass definitely remembered how to fall into one. “All four years.”

“Five,” she corrected. “The note says, ‘Just in case.’”

“What the fuck are we going to tell Maggie when I come for Thanksgiving?”

Lainey suggested, “I got a full-ride scholarship?” And that’s good enough for Chad.

Now he’s home again, until he has to turn right back around and drive to Maggie and Lainey’s for Hanukkah. Chad checks his mail on his way into the house; inside the box is a heavy cream-colored envelope. Curious, he drops his overnight bag right inside the door, grabs his letter opener, and slices it open.

Inside is yet another envelope, addressed to himself and Elaine. Chad opens it, too.

The invitation is gorgeous, all gold and pearl and lace, sophisticated and elegant. A June wedding, it says, an intimate celebration to take place at home with close friends.

Chad sits down in his study, in  the antique pinstriped bergère, and thumbs through the remaining contents of the envelope. There’s an RSVP card, and a card reminding Chad to save the date, and a third card asking that no gifts be brought. Upon further inspection, Chad finds a hidden flap inside the inner envelope; reaching in, he pulls out two round-trip airplane tickets.

The final enclosure is a photo of the happy couple--and they do, in fact, look extremely happy. Chad remembers looking like that, once upon a time. It tugs at his heart, brings a lump to his throat, and makes him want to look for his antacids.

Maybe doing good things for bad people can feel good, too.

Chad sighs, resigned to his fate.

This is going to be the weirdest goddamn wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to say here, now that we've reached the end. Thanks for joining me in this remarkably kinky, surprisingly romantic journey.
> 
> See you next June... ;D

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.com/shiphitsthefan/fict%C4%97velis/) for this fic, in case you're curious.
> 
> There's also an accompanying aesthetic for this fic: [here](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/post/145730817453/wills-fixing-hannibal-with-the-stare-and-the).
> 
> You can find me on my [tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/). I also chirp occasionally witty things on [twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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